Will a Time Capsule Work for Me?

[53kyle]

I am in need of a good solution for backing up 4 computers wirelessly. 3 of them are Mac laptops and one is a Windows 7 desktop. Our wireless router is also getting old, slow, and unstable.

I know that the time capsule will work with windows as a wireless router, but will I also able to backup the windows machine to it? Can I just partition it so one partition will work with the mac computers and the other will work with windows? If not, are there other solutions that are time machine capable AND windows compatible?

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I am in need of a good solution for backing up 4 computers wirelessly. 3 of them are Mac laptops and one is a Windows 7 desktop. Our wireless router is also getting old, slow, and unstable.

I know that the time capsule will work with windows as a wireless router, but will I also able to backup the windows machine to it? Can I just partition it so one partition will work with the mac computers and the other will work with windows? If not, are there other solutions that are time machine capable AND windows compatible?

It can be done. May require 3rd party software; but if it's Windows 7 Pro you can back up to a network disk.

What I'd suggest is a TC for the Macs, and plug in a USB hard disk to the TC to use as your Windows destination. Or better yet, since it's a Windows desktop just plug the backup disk directly into the desktop.

 

[Weaselboy]

I am in need of a good solution for backing up 4 computers wirelessly. 3 of them are Mac laptops and one is a Windows 7 desktop. Our wireless router is also getting old, slow, and unstable.

I know that the time capsule will work with windows as a wireless router, but will I also able to backup the windows machine to it? Can I just partition it so one partition will work with the mac computers and the other will work with windows? If not, are there other solutions that are time machine capable AND windows compatible?

Unless you want to pry the drive out of the Time Capsule to partition in an external enclosure, then put it back in the TC... there is no way to repartition a TC drive. But you should not need to.

Just make a folder on the TC drive and setup Win7 backup to a networked backup and point the destination at the TC folder. It looks like you need Win7 Ultimate to do a networked backup. I see a free utility here that looks like it would do the trick for you.

 

[53kyle]

Unless you want to pry the drive out of the Time Capsule to partition in an external enclosure, then put it back in the TC... there is no way to repartition a TC drive. But you should not need to.

Well, assuming I can, I was actually planning on getting a 2 TB time capsule, then upgrading to a 4 TB HD partitioned with a 3 TB partition for macs and a 1 TB for the PC, so formatting outside of the TC is fine for me. Thanks for answering my questions!

 

[7akeem]

I would recommend a NAS e.g. sinology. It work as a time machine for mac and you can use it for windows.

If you get a 4 bay NAS it is expandable in case you needed that in the future.

QNAP is good as I read in the internet but I used Synology and love it.

I have a time capsule as well, however I cant access it if it is backing up another mac. (not entirely sure about this as I didn't have the time to play with it yet).