hi i am wondering if anyone has purchased a refurbished time capsule and if they are happy with it. i currently have 3 macs and would like them all to hook up to a central printer and i think that the time capsule will let me do this as well as allow for back ups of music and photos and such. Or would you recommend just a classic hard drive to back up data? so any suggestions would be appreciated thanks.
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Time capsule
- Thread starter polska9
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If you have 3 macs on your network, a TC would be a nice addition and easy way to back everything up. An external drive would mean leaving that mac on all the time, so other macs could back up to it using time machine. That's pretty easy to set up too, but not quite as convenient.
Do you need a wireless router? If so, go with the TC.
Backing up 3 computers to a drive of even 1TB might be stretch depending on how much data exists across the board. Personally, I just use an Airport Extreme with an external drive of 2TB. I've been using it for just over 18 months and it still hasn't reached a point where it has had to delete something. A bit excessive, maybe, but it has saved me a few times at least. Doing this also gives you the flexibility to easily change the drives if it needs to be done, or partition a part off to use for something else to carry it around.
I was going to suggest the use of an Airport Extreme + External HDD, (there are obvious benefits of having the hard drive seperate) but the OP wants to use a printer too, and the Airport Extreme only has 1 USB port.
USB hubs are available for very low prices these days. I currently use one and have two hard drives and a printer hooked up to the router. I think that I paid about 5 for it.
I bought a Used 500gb time capsule and its been going strong for 5 months now.
the only thing likely to go wrong is the hard drive. I would say go for it.
1TB may or may not be enough for your three computers but you can always add on more storage using the usb port or by putting in a bigger HD
the only thing likely to go wrong is the hard drive. I would say go for it.
1TB may or may not be enough for your three computers but you can always add on more storage using the usb port or by putting in a bigger HD
Can you use timemachineautomatically with your macbooks if you have an external drive plugged into an airport extreme? For some reason I thought that this only worked with the timecapsule, otherwise you would need to directly plug the hard drive into the mac.