After looking at the specs of both the time capsule and the aebs I am torn between which to get. I can get the aebs along with a 1.5tb external for relatively the same price as a 500gb time capsule. If I were to get the aebs and an external hard drive would the only feature I would be losing be the ability to sync wirelessly. Is there anything other feature that I am missing that the time capsule has that the aebs would not be able to do because I can live without being able to sync wirelessly in order to gain some more storage space.
I have a 1TB drive hooked up to my AEBS and I can sync wirelessly just fine (2 MacBooks are backed up on this drive in fact). Just format the external hard drive as Mac drive and place an empty file (touch if you know Unix) in the drive named .com.apple.timemachine.supported. That last period is the end of the sentence and should NOT be in the filename. Hook the drive up to the AEBS and you should be able to mount it in the Finder on your MacBook. Then just set up Time Machine to use it.
Totally unnecessary with current firmware for the AEBS; that was a workaround (unsupported) before AEBS added support for TM. I backup wirelessly using TM from 3 Macs to my AEBS with a 750GB WD drive.
I've got a 2Big LaCie NAS, however its currently hooked to my modem + router 10/100 Ethernet, so I'll be looking to get a AEBS soon to make things a bit faster with n wifi and gigabit Ethernet
That's what I thought too but it didn't seem to work for me until I created that file. Oh well. Either way, I'm happy.
Whatever you plan to do - just remember, if you are having problems with Time Machine not backing up to your AEBS (Which shouldn't be a problem, although some people have had a slight hiccup) you'll have to troubleshoot it yourself - as AppleCare won't provide support for it, only when backing up to a TC.
I keep reading statements like this but I cannot see how Apple can possibly refuse to support Time Machine with AEBS+USB Disk when their own software (unhacked) supports it out of the box. If this is not a supported combination then they should not allow the AEBS disk to be selected as a Time Machine target. I can readily understand that they would not support this combo when (as was the case previously) a hack was required to get the AEBS disk enabled as a TM target. However, once Apple themselves enabled this configuration to work (I think it was in 7.3.1) then they now must support it. If they tried to tell me otherwise I would keep pushing until they did.
I'm not too sure why they don't offer support - but I do know that it works fine - I used to have an AEBS w/ USB HD attached and it worked fine. - but then I got a TC for my B'day.
A question for you then dylanbrown since you have had both what do you feel are the advantages of the time capsule over the aebs/hd combo other than it being a single unit. I guess I am just trying to justify paying $300 for 500gb when I can get the aebs/ 1tb harddrive combo for roughly the same.
In relation to your question, if you wantnto have one complete unit, go for the TC, otherwise go with the AEBS. Also if the "server grade" hard drive does die, it's a lot easier just to connect a new one on the AEBS. And the TC is a larger unit, as it holds the power brick and hd, unlike the AEBS. Hope this helps.
That's what I just did and am setting mine up this week (AEBS + 1 TB ext. USB/FW drive). I would highly recommend mounting it up high on the wall or ceiling using the "Air Mount" for optimal results. http://h-sq.com/products/airmount/index.html The horizontal wall adapter makes it easier to have it in the optimal horizontal position (if you don't want to/can't mount upside down on the ceiling). http://www.h-sq.com/store/cgi-bin/c...ct=&aff=&pg=prod&ref=airmount_ha&cat=&catstr=