Time capsule or normal hard drive?

[Gumbys69]

So I want to buy a hard drive to use my time capsule back up program on my new I Mac. Is the actual time capsule drive worth the $ or will a cheaper drive work as good? I know the Apple one is wifi and I don't mind spending the $ on Apple products but is this one really worth it?

 

[MCAsan]

You don't purchase a Time Capsule just for backup as any local or network drive can be used by Time Machine. You get a Time Capsule to get the backup drive, IP router, USB 2 port for printers or drives, and wifi hotspot.

 

[flynz4]

So I want to buy a hard drive to use my time capsule back up program on my new I Mac. Is the actual time capsule drive worth the $ or will a cheaper drive work as good? I know the Apple one is wifi and I don't mind spending the $ on Apple products but is this one really worth it?

First question is laptop vs desktop.

For a laptop... a network attached drive is a HUGE advantage. You never want to have a backup strategy the depends on any human interaction... and plugging a drive into laptop reduces the frequency of backups... possibly to an unacceptable level.

For a desktop... it is much less important. You can just keep the HDD attached to machine and it will continue to backup on schedule. The only significant downside is if your machine is stollen... it is quite likely that the backup HHD is stollen along with your primary data. With a network attached drive (like a TC)... it can be located in a different part of the house...and possibly secured against obvious theft. Still... the value of the network attached drive for a desktop is MUCH less than for a laptop... especially if you use an automatic offsite service for disaster recovery backup.

/Jim

 

[ChristianVirtual]

I'm not a big fan of TC after two dead devices ... No more trust in that one from my side. Others are happy. I'm a happy user of a QNAP NAS now.

 

[Gumbys69]

You don't purchase a Time Capsule just for backup as any local or network drive can be used by Time Machine. You get a Time Capsule to get the backup drive, IP router, USB 2 port for printers or drives, and wifi hotspot.

Yeh I suppose it is way more than I need, I only need a back up drive.