Time Capsule Question

[badman89]

At my parents house we have an Airport Extreme with a 2TB USB hard drive connected to it. All the computers in the house run Windows. The purpose of the external hard drive is for multimedia storage (music, movies, tv shows, etc.) - so that all computers in the house can access the media.

Unlike my parents, I am a mac user. Therefore, for my apartment, I'm thinking of getting a Time Capsule. My understanding is that it will have all of the above mentioned functionality + it will automatically do back-ups. Is this correct? Can I use the Time Capsule as an external HD for storing all my media and accessing it from various computers connected to the network?

Thanks in advance to anybody who can answer this question for me. Cheers!

 

[Macman45]

Yes, but a better bet is to keep the TC taking care of backups and wifi, and add an external HDD to it's USB port.

There is nothing wrong with partitioning a TC, but some have had issues. I use mine solely for backing up 3 Macs and my wifi.

 

[Big Stevie]

Yes, but a better bet is to keep the TC taking care of backups and wifi, and add an external HDD to it's USB port.

Do you mean connect it to the TC's USB port? If so, what happens once youve connected it? Does the TC's content automatically copy over to the external HD, or do you just drag over the stuff from the TC that you want copied?

Thanks

 

[Macman45]

Do you mean connect it to the TC's USB port? If so, what happens once youve connected it? Does the TC's content automatically copy over to the external HD, or do you just drag over the stuff from the TC that you want copied?

Thanks

No, they remain two separate entities..Your TC doing backup tasks, and providing wifi, the external USB drive for any data you care to put on it...But remember you will be restricted by wifi speeds on the USB drive.

 

[Big Stevie]

Thanks Macman

 

[mmomega]

Also if you are considering a TC I would suggest doing the fan mod http://www.fackrell.me.uk/index.html
to keep it cool and longer lasting.

Since TC's have an internal power supply and 3.5" HDD they can get fairly warm, and the heat can shorten the life of both the power supply and HDD.

How much of a heat difference? a drop from around 109F down to around 89F.

 

[Fed]

When the TC's disk is being used with time machine and an external hard drive is plugged into the TC, will I see both disks on my Mac automatically when connected to it? What about iPhone? I use the Virgin Media SuperHub in my house for the Internet, will it be a case of just plugging an Ethernet cable from one to the other for Internet? Apologies for the basic questions, I'm not that experienced with networking Apple products!

Also, from what I understand the TC had problems in the past with regards to reliability and yet the poster above this post seems to suggest they still exist, can anyone offer some thoughts?

Finally, am I right in thinking that the time capsule has the same networking capabilities as the AirPort Extreme with two TB of storage?