Time Capsule: Worth it?

[BlakeBrattina]

So I am looking into getting a new/used TC for my apartment; I know it's not large enough to need an extended wireless setting, so I am trying to weigh out the true benefit. I am quite fond of all Apple products, but not really sure in terms of capabilities of the TC, to be honest, I have never really looked into it's capabilities. I own an Apple TV, obviously an MBP and am currently using a 320GB external as my back-up source.

I guess my question to all of you would be, how far could I stretch the use of the Time Capsule, meaning, maximize. I do not do any graphic design or anything, and typically use my MBP for photo editing, movies, etc. My ATV2 is plugged into my Living Room TV (55" Samsung) and I may pick up an older one for the bedroom for when the lady doesn't want to sit with me to watch Football..

edit: I understand my audience also, but realistically, I guess I am asking if it would be worth $200 or so. Any words or opinions would be appreciated!

 

[andrew8404]

I used to have one a few years back but just didn't seem to work good enough. I was always calling apple to get it fixed. It's nice in theory but I also didn't like having a portable hard drive that I could take with me anywhere. Maybe it's improved by now?

 

[BlakeBrattina]

That's somewhat where I am at in this debate. By no means is $100-200 out of my pocket an 'expense' but, I just don't know if I need it. I do want a more expandable back-up source rather than my Seagate external but... If I can't play my ATV2 directly from it and it does not serve much more of a purpose other than being able to be an additional Wireless source, then I'm not sure.

 

[andrew8404]

You can also look into some wireless hard drives not made by apple. Supposedly, they work with Time Machine and are a lot cheaper.

 

[satcomer]

I have a Time Capsule but then Apple now allowed the Airport Extreme external connected drives support Time Machine now. So you best bet would be getting an Airport Extreme and then get an external hard drive (than has USB2 port on it) and connect it.

Just one word of advice. Do the first Time Machine backup connected directly to the drive. Then after that first big backup you can move it to the wireless position and Time Machine will still use that drive. This saves a lot of time.

 

[Young Spade]

Why not just use a regular hard drive and plug it in whenever you want to do a backup that way? Granted, it isn't going to be as simple as just pushing the button, but if you do it every day it only takes as long as the amount of data that is either added or deleted from the drive.

That's what I'm doing anyway; I have two 320 drives. One for media, one for Time Machine.

Whatever option you end up going with though, I would highly suggest doing something. TM has already proved its worth for me when I sold my old MB and got a new MBP.