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Time Capsule

B

blasto333

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 3, 2004
247
2
My hard drive crashed on my laptop. I had a backup on my iMac which had most of my files, but I didn't really backup my laptop because it is a pain to plug into a hard drive.

Anyways does anyone recommend the Time Capsule? Also, do you think the price will go down and storage increase?
 
Last edited:
it works but its slow as hell

buy a regular hard drive and just hook it up, much easier and way cheaper
 
A more economical solution, although still somewhat expensive would be to buy an airport extreme (the most current model can be found on the apple refurb store for $129) and connect the a Hard Drive to the usb port. The initial backup does take forever (read: leave it plugged in through ethernet overnight and it will be done in the morning) However once you are set up initially the backup is fast enough. USB or firewire is clearly faster, but my backups usually take less than a minute to complete over the network. I have two laptops backing up using this setup and it works well. Especially for my wife, who if it were up to her, would never physically plug in a hard drive.

As to whether price on TC will come down, I'd say not likely. As it hasn't come down in the three years it has been available for sale. Apple did however bump the capacity a while back. Still it's much cheaper to buy an Airport Extreme and a 1 or 2TB drive. Couple the two together and you have the equivalent of a TC.
 
blasto333 said:
... I didn't really backup my laptop because it is a pain to plug into a hard drive...
Click to expand...

I think you're the perfect candidate for a Time Capsule, since you won't have to plug it in to get good regular backups. Sorry for your loss, BTW.

Do the first Time Machine backup with a wired connection and it will take much less time. Then unplug the laptop and you can do all your subsequent backups wirelessly (and, of course, automatically). Makes perfect sense for a portable computer. (Note: mine is wired to my iMac so I don't have direct experience with wireless TM backups.)

I recommend the Time Capsule because I've had such a good experience with mine, and I think Apple has resolved the heat/capacitor problem of a bunch of 1st-gen TCs. Admittedly there's not much evidence either way, and reasonable people can disagree -- there's no lack of postings from the many people who did have their 1st gen TC die around 18 months old. So, many will warn against buying a TC.

I love my TC for reducing clutter and power usage, convenience, upgradeability (yes--I easily upgraded the internal hard drive), and most of all for taking the error-prone human action out of the backup process.

Also, you can backup your iMac and your Mac laptop(s) to the same TC.

Regards,
Brian33
 
Brian33 said:
I think you're the perfect candidate for a Time Capsule, since you won't have to plug it in to get good regular backups. Sorry for your loss, BTW.

Do the first Time Machine backup with a wired connection and it will take much less time. Then unplug the laptop and you can do all your subsequent backups wirelessly (and, of course, automatically). Makes perfect sense for a portable computer. (Note: mine is wired to my iMac so I don't have direct experience with wireless TM backups.)

I recommend the Time Capsule because I've had such a good experience with mine, and I think Apple has resolved the heat/capacitor problem of a bunch of 1st-gen TCs. Admittedly there's not much evidence either way, and reasonable people can disagree -- there's no lack of postings from the many people who did have their 1st gen TC die around 18 months old. So, many will warn against buying a TC.

I love my TC for reducing clutter and power usage, convenience, upgradeability (yes--I easily upgraded the internal hard drive), and most of all for taking the error-prone human action out of the backup process.

Also, you can backup your iMac and your Mac laptop(s) to the same TC.

Regards,
Brian33
Click to expand...

I agree with this completely, even though my 1st generation one died at almost exactly 18 months. I fixed mine and modified it to run cooler, but I have to think the new ones aren't so compromised (quiet, rather than cooling, was Apple's priority on the 1st one).

You will love it. Yes, there is an Apple tax and people hack and rig all sorts of drives and devices, but the all in one aspect is just what I want.

Also, think about the need for having two backups anyway, one near your computer and one off-site in case of theft or fire. I use the TC and the convenient and automatic one, and another hard drive and enclosure for the second one.

In the future it likely will be better to use a commercial site on-line, but right now I have the parts and so I will do it the conventional way.
 
I believe in doing two backups. I use Time Capsule for daily/hourly backups but I do a monthly bootable backup to an external hard drive using Super Duper. It was costly to set all this up, but my data is too important (all pictures of my children not to mention tons of personal docs and purchased music and family movies.

The reason I do a multiple backup solution is that I had a backup when my HD crashed on my MBP and the backup did not work properly so I lost some files.

Remember, even if you upgrade computers in the future the backup system you invest in should work for years.
 
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