Setting up your home network used to be something you called your buddy from the IT help desk to do. Network storage appliances used to be configured by PhD’s. Apple has changed that.
I recently purchased the 1 TB Apple Time Capsule and like a lot of Apple’s products it does something so nicely you just forget (or choose to overlook) the short comings. Bottom line is that I think this device is well worth the money at $500 for 1 TB of storage.
I initially set this up with my Mac Mini on Leopard as the de facto Time Machine, but shortly realized that it was a waste of 1 terabyte (TB) of network storage capacity. I backup everything I have with a second hard drive and keep it outside the house anyway. I don’t need a back up system for the few files I actually keep on my desktop. Time Machine might be great for the conspiracy theorists who worry about the end of time and all that, but it just wasn’t for me. I found some articles in chat rooms describing how to partition the drive for network storage and the typical Time Machine usage, but I chose just to keep it all as storage and turn the backup feature off.
Below I break down the pros and cons but I just have to say this thing just works like a champ and couldn’t be easier to set up. My only real gripe, that I wish I had a way to address, is that I use this as my storage for all my music files. When it streams a song longer than say 4 minutes it falls into sleep mode and can sometimes delay the start of the next song or stop serving up its buffer all together. I wish I had a way with the Air Port Utility to change this sleep time duration but I don’t. This happens so infrequently that it doesn’t bother me that much. More importantly, I suspect this devise should last me a good four years and hold all the MP3s, digital video, and photos I can produce.
Pros:
- Great range (8o2.11N)
- Very reliable
- Simple
- Fast
Cons:
- Limited Flexibility
- Sometimes sleeps when streaming music via iTunes
- “I” personally don’t like Time Machine backup software
08.26.2008 at 10:10 am - by Brig Graff
This sounds great, except for the sleep mode thing. I wonder if this would work as a backup storage for AppleTV to download lots of movies & use this as a replacement for your DVD library…
02.08.2010 at 7:33 pm - by Jim
UPDATE!
This died yesterday. Just stopped working. I searched around the apple forums and found this is a known issue. That after ~18 months the machine just stops working and is dead. The power supply either overheats or the board overheats from the power supply. I would recommend the Airport but not the time capsule. This sucks!!