Time Capsule?

They have platter-based hard drives in them, so at some point they'll fail. I think the reviews you're reading probably refer to the power supply issue though, which has been fixed.

 

Traditional spinning hard drives (the platters spin) vs. Solid State drives which are flash type memory.

PS: I've had a 2TB Time Capsule that has worked flawlessly for the past year.

 

TC 2G Works Well

Have had mine for a just over a year. Not one issue....Set up a piece of cake

 

I purchased a refurb TC from the Apple store 3 years ago and have never had a problem with it.

What I'd like is to have a TB port on an Airport Extreme so that it could allow for virtually unlimited storage.

 

3tb works fine for me! Love the tc

 

It was the 1st gen Time Capsules (512gb and 1tb) that had the PSU issues, they died after around 14-18 months, the capacitors on the PSU were shoddily produced and couldn't withstand the heat generated by the HDD in its almost airtight little box. (seriously, the TC still needs some sort of proper venting, it gets toasty hot sometimes)

Issues seems to have been fixed in the 2nd and 3rd gen units

 

Been running a 1TB Time Capsule for nearly 2 1/2 years so far, options at the time were 1TB and 2TB models so I'm not sure which itteration mine is.

I know anecdote != evidence but I've been extremely pleased with mine so far. Retrieved the odd deleted file and email and migrated both my wifes and my own upgraded macbooks using the Time Machine restore option. Been very pleased with it and it makes a pretty good router to boot.

 

I use the Airport Extreme Base station and hook up a usb external hard drive to it that backs up from time machine. That way in a few years I can switch out the hard drive and not have to worry a failing drive within Time Capsule.

 

My 1 TB TC died after a year and a half (so it was out of warranty). Took it to Apple, and they replaced it, plus they gave me the old HDD back (was working fine). So I ended up with 2 x 1TB HDDs. Nice.

Put the old HDD in an enclosure, and use it as NAS or for backing up my TC.

Basically, the TC is a backup, not an archive i.e. don't have your only copies of some important file on the TC.

 

My Input

I have a 500 GB TimeCapsule that just died after 3.1/2 years. I went with the 2TB. Hopefully the issue are fixed.

 

Had a 2 TB TC since Jan of 2010. Always on and always works. I did put it up on little feet for more airflow underneath. Great router and TM backup.

 

I purchased a 2 TB Christmas 2011 along with an i-Mac, and the power supply died early July, so it lasted 7 months.

They gave me a new one, and I just don't trust it. It looses WiFi once in a while, requiring a restart of the i-Mac, and sometimes it will show the multi-colered rolling ball for a long time before finaly allowing me to access it through finder.

I do a lot of photography and I can't trust it for backups, so I recently purchased a WD 3 TB Firewire external drive.

 

Could be overcrowded local wifi - too many networks. Use something like iStumbler to find a relatively clear channel to set your TC wifi channel.

Beachballs before accessing are usually cos it's spun down the HDD to save power. So when you access it, it takes a few seconds to spin up the HDD and give you the file listing.

I subscribe to the 3 copies in two different places rule. One copy on your computer, a second copy in the TC (or in the WD) and a third copy in a different place. Could be via cloud storage, or another HD kept at another office or your parents' place. That way, when a HD fails, you are not left with a single solitary copy that may itself fail when you try to duplicate the HDD.