Comments on: Apple's Time Capsule Wi-Fi hard drive shipping

The solution to the problem of backing up a Leopard MacBook wirelessly is Time Capsule, a combination Wi-Fi access point and external hard drive.

[ikcizokm]

Maybe now Apple will also fix the Airport Extreme 802.11N

It's been broken for the same amount of time. It has issues with hard drives connected via USB. Very well documented on Apple's support forums, but the response has been :crickets:

[manny.valencia]

Windows Home Server is NOT reliable

I?ve used Microsoft Windows Home Server and it was a horrendous
experience. It was unstable and crashed several times and
eventually I ended up losing the data. I am a PC user and certainly
would NOT recommend Windows Home Server for those seeking a
stable and reliable back up solution.

[John-D]

Windows Home Server Can Already Do This!

Microsoft Windows Home Server can provide efficient wired and wireless backups at the drive image and individual file levels.

WHS also acts as a centralized repository (i.e. shared files) for audio and video files that can be accessed by PCs, Macs and even your TiVo. It also supports a single point of remote entry for all your home computers.

Apple needs to get this right!

[kelmon]

WHS Overkill

I definitely agree that Apple needs to fix the problems with Airport
Extreme but I will also note that Windows Home Server is just
overkill for what I want - a simple wireless storage device. I've also
read enough reports of issues with WHS to know that I don't want
to touch that either.

[manny.valencia]

Time Capsule

Will it work with PCs or is just a Mac solution?

[kelmon]

Should Work But Major Benefits Lost

Given that the Airport Extreme Base Station allows access for
Windows PCs to the data stored on a connected USB drive then
Time Capsule should work fine for a PC as well. However, the
major selling point is that Time Capsule is compatible with OS X
10.5's Time Machine application for wireless back-ups. I rather
feel that you'd be paying money for a feature that you won't use
unless you have Macs in the house and that therefore you'd
probably be better off spending your money on another router
with similar functions. Given the issues that I have had with the
Airport Extreme Base Station (recently returned to Apple for
replacement) I honestly can't recommend buying a router from
Apple. Mind you, my previous AEBS (802.11g router) is still
going strong and has recently had to be promoted back to being
my main router again.

[geekazine]

One drive?

I like the idea that it's wireless, but a backup system that is only one hard drive? Still not totally impressed with this appliance - especially since people will leave that on 24/7.

[kelmon]

Better Than Nothing

Well, given that this is supposed to be a simple solution for those
people who currently don't do any backups, I think we can all agree
that this is better than nothing. I agree with the sentiment that this
is not the best solution but anything else would push the price up
and put off buyers who would be well served with at least some
form of safety net.

[mathdave]

I am using Time Machine wirelessly already

I have a 500 gb hard drive connected to my iMac by firewire. My
MacBook Pro accesses the hard drive over my network using an
Airport Extreme base station.

The laptop is currently creating its initial backup on Time Machine.