Time Capsule transfer rates & media streaming?

[bsheridan]

Does anyone know what the transfer rates are for the wireless aspects of time capsule? I've checked apple.com but don't see anything on it.

I plan on getting and external HDD for storing my media collection of music, movies etc but I am still torn between buying a HD drive with USB/firewire or buying Time Capsule?

If I were to get the time capsule, seeing as other macs/pcs can access it wirelessly, does that mean that they could all share/ stream the media content on it?

 

[pilotError]

If you had one machine use the external drive as the iTunes data store you could probably share iTunes.

I don't think the Time Capsule has any streaming services, so you couldn't use it as a uPnP device.

As far as speed is concerned, it depends on a bunch of things. Location of the Time Capsule, what network cards you have in your PC's / Mac's, etc. I have an early 2006 iMac with an Airport extreme and I get about 2-3 MB per second over wireless (iMac has wireless G in it). For the initial Time machine backup, I turned sleep off and it took 2 days for approx. 350MB of data on the initial backup. I eliminated the cache directory from my backups and the hourly backups happen pretty quickly. For the first backup, it might be worth it to hard wire the machine and let it do the first backup.

Hope that helps...

 

[bsheridan]

Thanks for your input.
Seeing as you could back up multiple HDs to the time capsule I had a feeling that you could share folders through it etc.

 

[aristobrat]

If I were to get the time capsule, seeing as other macs/pcs can access it wirelessly, does that mean that they could all share/ stream the media content on it?

http://www.apple.com/timecapsule/wireless.html

Look at the "Works with Mac and PC" section at the bottom of the page. I think it clarifies what you're asking about.

The only concern I'd have is that Time Machine currently will use all free space for backups. If they don't change that in the OS X 10.5.2 update, it'd probably be wise to partition your Time Capsule drive, giving Time Machine its own partition to fill up, but leaving you with another partition for your user data that you don't have to worry about Time Machine filling up.

 

[stefk]

Per Apple site...

Because it mounts as a wireless hard drive, Tiger and Windows users simply access Time Capsule directly from the wireless network for exchanging and storing files quickly and easily.

Surely this would imply that it can be used as a wireless hard drive. I can see there may be some ambiguity as to whether this is the case under Leopard, if Leopard reserves the whole HDD for TM backup then it may not be possible to store user files on it.

Personally, I just want it to act as a wireless media hub. I seem to remember that before my Lacie USB drive packed in I was able to get itunes to access and play music from the external drive. Any ideas if this is still likely to be the case if it is a wireless drive?

My initial thoughts would be yes, but then I started wondering if this caused too much of a cross over with TV and we all know how much like you to buy as many products as possible!

 

[HLdan]

For the initial Time machine backup, I turned sleep off and it took 2 days for approx. 350MB of data on the initial backup. I eliminated the cache directory from my backups and the hourly backups happen pretty quickly. For the first backup, it might be worth it to hard wire the machine and let it do the first backup.

Hope that helps...

Are you sure about that?? 350 MB took 2 days to backup via Time Machine? That's really very slow. In the case of someone that has a modest 20GB to backup it would take weeks.

 

[Abstract]

2 days? No way. Even if it was 350 GB, it shouldn't take 2 days, should it?

 

[aristobrat]

2 days? No way. Even if it was 350 GB, it shouldn't take 2 days, should it?

I think they said the machine was being backed up over 802.11g.

 

[Mindflux]

It took Time Machine over night (10 hours or so) to back up about 100GB of data over wireless N to my AEBS:n w/ an Air Disk.

The incremental backups since then are TINY.

 

[bsheridan]

Stefk; exactly what I thought apple might do haha. But I think it might still be possible eve with the new tv, because file sharing includes ALL files not just media files so most likely you'll be able to share them through timecapsule.

Looks like timecapsule might be the better option for me after all.