What do most of you guys use for backup? And is Time Capsule worth it?

[SiMBa37]

What brand of external hard drives do most of you guys use? It'd be nice to find one that is all aluminum (and reliable) to go with Mac design.

And I know this question as been asked before, but I haven't found satisfactory replies when searching this forum, but here it goes:

Is the Time Capsule worth it in light of the 18 month self destruct switch. Seems like the problem is bad internals and an enclosed space with poor cooling. The design hasn't changed, so this thing seems destined to fail.

I have a cisco router that works perfectly fine, I don't need a new one. But the wireless back up seems really convenient. But not at the cost of an inevitable device failure that Apple will not repair, and will not let you recover your data without breaking your warranty.

 

[iBookG4user]

I use Western Digital or Seagate hard drives and this enclosure.

 

[SiMBa37]

I use Western Digital or Seagate hard drives and this enclosure.

lol, talk about derivative styling. Damn thing looks like a mini Mac pro. Looks nice, but not as elegant as the Time Capsule. Although I bet yours hasn't self destructed at 18 months, right?

 

[iBookG4user]

lol, talk about derivative styling. Damn thing looks like a mini Mac pro. Looks nice, but not as elegant as the Time Capsule. Although I bet yours hasn't self destructed at 18 months, right?

I didn't buy it for the looks, I bought it because it was the cheapest SATA enclosure that had a FireWire port

But no, I've been using it for about two years now and it's worked flawlessly.

 

[mangrove]

Bought the TC when it first came out. Crapped out about 4 months ago. Genius bar replaced it with newer (current) model for n/c.

To clarify-if you have any Apple still under warranty (regular or extended) when it carps out the TC is covered under that computer's warranty, no questions asked.

It works well on all 5 machines we have on it. Love the Wifi on it especially for far corners of the house and outside where the iPad never has reception problems.

 

[SiMBa37]

Bought the TC when it first came out. Crapped out about 4 months ago. Genius bar replaced it with newer (current) model for n/c.

To clarify-if you have any Apple still under warranty (regular or extended) when it carps out the TC is covered under that computer's warranty, no questions asked.

It works well on all 5 machines we have on it. Love the Wifi on it especially for far corners of the house and outside where the iPad never has reception problems.

When it crapped out, how did you recover an data from the TC? I also heard Apple makes no garuntee regarding your data security if they replace your old unit.

 

[skorpien]

When it crapped out, how did you recover an data from the TC? I also heard Apple makes no garuntee regarding your data security if they replace your old unit.

You can't without opening it up, and as far as I know Apple doesn't provide any recovery services for the data on the drive. You just get a new, blank Time Capsule. If you do get one, you'll have to back it up regularly. Just copy the TC's contents to an external once a month or something so that you're only losing a month's data at most. You should never have only one backup for any data worth backing up.

My opinion, if you don't need the router aspect of the Time Capsule, don't get it. You'd be better off with a NAS that supports Time Machine out of the box (I think the WD My Book World Edition does). And in all cases, you'd be wise to have a second backup.

 

[tmricks]

I got a Western Digital my Book Essential today at Best Buy. It was on sale for a good price compared to other ones they had.

 

[SeniorGato1]

Save yourself the headache and worry of the time capsule and just get an airport and plug the USB drive of your choice into it

 

[ZGXtreme]

I use Western Digital or Seagate hard drives and this enclosure.

This is the solution I was going to pursue. I had decided on the enclosure and the use of a WD drive, but I am at a loss at to which specific drive. Could you recommend which drive(s) you are using with these enclosures?

 

[talmy]

Recently buying these OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro. Sturdy case. Can buy with/without drive. Also use a "toaster" with bare drives for image backups (kept offsite). I use a mix of drive brands, WD, Seagate, Hitachi, Samsung. Can't really tell the difference.

 

[nineohtoo]

Save yourself the headache and worry of the time capsule and just get an airport and plug the USB drive of your choice into it

^The truth. I just use my Airport Extreme and a Ministack so me and my wifi guests can access it wirelessly, or just plug in a firewire cable so I can access things faster.

 

[iHeartapple2]

I have been using the Time Capsule for little over 2 years now. So far so good!

 

[steve2112]

I use OWC's MiniStack on my Mini. I got the bare "build your own" version and stuck a 750GB drive in it. I like having the extra ports, and it looks like my Mini. I wonder if they will redesign it to look like the new Minis.

I also have a Buffalo Linkstation 500GB NAS drive. It's not the best in the world, but I got it dirt cheap when Circuit City was going out of business. I use for the other machines in my house.

 

[Keleko]

I have a first generation TC that's been working just fine since I got it when they came out, so a bit over 2 years. If it craps out, I'm not worried if there's no recovery since it is backup only. Primary storage is on my two Macs already.

 

[IrishTiger]

Okay - interesting thread. So I've got an older Airport Extreme (it can broadcast in either 2.4 or 5ghz). I've got it broadcasting on the 5ghz frequency, and I have an airport express doing the 2.4ghz. I'm a pilot, so I want to take the airport express with me on my trips to make my own wifi network in hotel rooms since a lot of the time the wireless signals are poor.

On my current airport extreme, it does have a USB input, but I was using it for a printer. It wouldn't allow me to use it as a HD function.

I use an external 500GB hard drive (Toshiba) that I just plug into the USB port on my MacBook Pro to backup, which it does with the time capsule application.

Coincidentally, I just purchased a newer AE that can broadcast in both 2.4 and 5ghz. With this newer one, can I just plug my external hard drive into the back of that one and still use the time capsule function? Basically I want my new Airport Extreme to function as a time capsule, but I know the TC's have terrible reputations, and I wanted a dual band router anyways. Now this frees up my airport express so I can take it with me when I travel.

Am I able to do this with the newer airport extremes?

 

[skorpien]

Okay - interesting thread. So I've got an older Airport Extreme (it can broadcast in either 2.4 or 5ghz). I've got it broadcasting on the 5ghz frequency, and I have an airport express doing the 2.4ghz. I'm a pilot, so I want to take the airport express with me on my trips to make my own wifi network in hotel rooms since a lot of the time the wireless signals are poor.

On my current airport extreme, it does have a USB input, but I was using it for a printer. It wouldn't allow me to use it as a HD function.

I use an external 500GB hard drive (Toshiba) that I just plug into the USB port on my MacBook Pro to backup, which it does with the time capsule application.

Coincidentally, I just purchased a newer AE that can broadcast in both 2.4 and 5ghz. With this newer one, can I just plug my external hard drive into the back of that one and still use the time capsule function? Basically I want my new Airport Extreme to function as a time capsule, but I know the TC's have terrible reputations, and I wanted a dual band router anyways. Now this frees up my airport express so I can take it with me when I travel.

Am I able to do this with the newer airport extremes?

You probably can (more on this later), but you'll have to start your backups from scratch. Time Machine backs up to a hard drive connected directly to your Mac differently than it would to a networked hard drive. Whereas it copies files directly when connected directly, it creates a sparsebundle image file onto any network attached drives.

Now about the probably. Apple has never officially supported Time Machine backups over AirDisk via AEBS. Apple has gone so far as to say they will provide no support if you attempt this and fail. I've also been reading that recently, users have been unable to use Time Machine over AirDisk anymore. I can't comment on the validity of this as I do not do this myself however. Another thing that makes me think it might not work is that you state it does not work with your current AEBS, which if it is a non-simultaneous dual band version, should be able to. (This might actually be due to the hard drive. Some drives, regardless of being formatted HFS+, cannot be shared over AirDisk.)

 

[IrishTiger]

You probably can (more on this later), but you'll have to start your backups from scratch. Time Machine backs up to a hard drive connected directly to your Mac differently than it would to a networked hard drive. Whereas it copies files directly when connected directly, it creates a sparsebundle image file onto any network attached drives.

Now about the probably. Apple has never officially supported Time Machine backups over AirDisk via AEBS. Apple has gone so far as to say they will provide no support if you attempt this and fail. I've also been reading that recently, users have been unable to use Time Machine over AirDisk anymore. I can't comment on the validity of this as I do not do this myself however. Another thing that makes me think it might not work is that you state it does not work with your current AEBS, which if it is a non-simultaneous dual band version, should be able to. (This might actually be due to the hard drive. Some drives, regardless of being formatted HFS+, cannot be shared over AirDisk.)

Well I just got my new AEBS in the mail today. I have it all set up on the dual band frequency and all. It's fantastic. I had a heck of a time getting the port forwarding done for my CCTV system at my house. Finally got that set up. I also connected my 500GB hard drive to my AEBS, and time machine recognizes it, and looks like it's doing it now. Unfortunately, it's starting over from scratch, so I'll have to go in and delete the previous backups. But it's working. This is fantastic. I can also still access it (I use it to store pics and movies on it) wirelessly. Very happy so far. We'll see if that changes.

Edit: And having it broadcast in dual frequencies is brilliant. I'm ecstatic about it actually.

 

[palane]

I'd put a caveat on that. Well, two. If you're doing this wirelessly via a hub such an the Airport Extreme, make sure that the drive is ™ compatible. Not all are. Also, it's not a bad idea to consider a home NAS drive attached to your router. There are a few out there that are Time Machine compatible. Iomega makes one. I think LaCie makes another.

BB

Save yourself the headache and worry of the time capsule and just get an airport and plug the USB drive of your choice into it

 

[SiMBa37]

Okay - interesting thread. So I've got an older Airport Extreme (it can broadcast in either 2.4 or 5ghz). I've got it broadcasting on the 5ghz frequency, and I have an airport express doing the 2.4ghz. I'm a pilot, so I want to take the airport express with me on my trips to make my own wifi network in hotel rooms since a lot of the time the wireless signals are poor.

On my current airport extreme, it does have a USB input, but I was using it for a printer. It wouldn't allow me to use it as a HD function.

I use an external 500GB hard drive (Toshiba) that I just plug into the USB port on my MacBook Pro to backup, which it does with the time capsule application.

Coincidentally, I just purchased a newer AE that can broadcast in both 2.4 and 5ghz. With this newer one, can I just plug my external hard drive into the back of that one and still use the time capsule function? Basically I want my new Airport Extreme to function as a time capsule, but I know the TC's have terrible reputations, and I wanted a dual band router anyways. Now this frees up my airport express so I can take it with me when I travel.

Am I able to do this with the newer airport extremes?

Seriously, good luck with AE, haven't the foggiest how to address that. Still not sure what back up device to get.

 

[BiggAW]

I got a Western Digital my Book Essential today at Best Buy. It was on sale for a good price compared to other ones they had.

I love those drives. They are minimalist in the sense that they are just sort of nondescript bricks.

I had a 500GB and a 1TB, now a 1TB and 2TB, used for TM and Deep Storage, respectively. For a small number of users, external drives are your best bet.

If I had a bunch of users to back up, I would get the HP EX495 Windows Home Server, and it has TM and Windows backup support, so it could live comfortably in a mixed environment. The only tricky part is how to back up a WHS, and how to handle offsite backup.

 

[314631]

I use 2x WD MyBook Studio for rotatable backups with Firewire 800 and SuperDuper! software. For my MacBook Pro, I use 2x the 500gb USB powered passport drives in rotation with SuperDuper! software.

 

[GGJstudios]

I use this, in the 1TB/FW800 flavor, among others:

OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro™

 

[Fishrrman]

"Is the Time Capsule worth it in light of the 18 month self destruct switch. Seems like the problem is bad internals and an enclosed space with poor cooling. The design hasn't changed, so this thing seems destined to fail."

Don't waste your money on a Time Capsule, just because it has the Apple logo on it. You already know the score. Why buy something which [in your own words] "seems destined to fail"?

Instead, you might consider something like this:
http://oyendigital.com/hard-drives/store/RS-M2QO.html
(also available at amazon com)

Versatile with room to grow -- can be used as either a RAID or "JBOD" (just bunch of drives, probably better off that way). Firewire 800+400, USB2, eSATA.

Another way to do it is to get one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=usb+sata+dock&x=0&y=0

.... and one or more "bare" drives, and swap things around as necessary.

The SATA docks can be very useful tools to have around, for not a lot of money.

 

[JoelMarcey]

No long term experience, but short term is good

I bought a refurbished, current model Time Capsule when I bought my iMac. Both are now covered under AppleCare. No issues at all so far. And it is nice to have one less accessory cluttering my desk.