High-quality photos and notes on Apple's Time Capsule

[AppleInsider]

Outside, Time Capsule is nearly indistinguishable from its AirPort Extreme sibling -- the device has only a slightly larger surface area (7.7 inches versus 6.5) and height (1.4 inches versus 1.3), as well as a mirror-finish Apple logo. For standard networking, the device is also virtually identical and provides up to 802.11n Wi-Fi as well as gigabit Ethernet and a USB port for printers or shared storage.

AirPort Extreme is not going away and will cost the same $179 as before, according to Apple. Time Capsule nonetheless appears to have been internally codenamed as a different device, M52. At Macworld, the device also bears an unknown "Wilma" card name.

The new router's storage is, of course, a critical difference. The storage allows one or more Mac OS X Leopard systems to automatically recognize Time Capsule as a Time Machine drive and backup over the network whether it's using Ethernet or wireless. No special software is needed other than Mac OS X 10.5.1, even if the Capsule's disk is shared between systems.

The Mac maker also says the drive works as a standard NAS drive.

Apple hopes this feature will separate Time Capsule from a small but growing field of multi-purpose routers.

While no existing rival offers as simple a backup method, a few manufacturers such as ASUS ship hard drive-equipped routers that also include network services Apple doesn't, such as BitTorrent clients and remote FTP servers. Some also offer remote backup software that allows more fine-tuned backup options.

At one terabyte, however, the top-end Time Capsule is believed to be one of the most capacious devices of its class.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[Lorre]

It DOES work as a standard NAS drive, from the Apple site:


Wireless drive sharing

Time Capsule also works great as a wireless hard drive whether you have a Mac or PC. It sets up in a snap, giving you a networked hard drive you can use for storing and sharing any kinds of files.

[amac4me]

I wish I would have waited. I just bought an external Lacie D2 Quadra 500GB hard drive a few weeks ago. I could have gotten Time Capsule. Oh well.

[tetzel1517]

Any word on whether any ol' external hard drive hooked up to a regular Airport Extreme Base Station will be able to do Time Machine wirelessly?

[nofear1az]

at least the drive in this baby is a 7200rpm SATA drive.

man, I wish they did a dual drive setup with this thing for RAID purposes.

EDIT: I just saw that it still came with a USB port so you can still hook-up an external drive to it. Software RAID if you must.

[AWAL]

Originally Posted by tetzel1517

Any word on whether any ol' external hard drive hooked up to a regular Airport Extreme Base Station will be able to do Time Machine wirelessly?

AMEN! I was wondering exactly that the second this thing was announced....

[iDave]

Originally Posted by amac4me

I wish I would have waited. I just bought an external Lacie D2 Quadra 500GB hard drive a few weeks ago. I could have gotten Time Capsule. Oh well.

Your LaCie drive will be a heckuva lot faster.

[crees!]

Originally Posted by nofear1az

EDIT: I just saw that it still came with a USB port so you can still hook-up an external drive to it. Software RAID if you must.

The USB drive is for setting up a shared printer. Not sure if it'll recognize a drive.

[iDave]

Originally Posted by crees!

Not sure if it'll recognize a drive.

It will. Link

[anantksundaram]

Aaargh.... I am torn. Should I p1$$ of the Mrs. and buy it right now -- I sooo want it! -- or wait six more weeks until it's my birthday, so that she can "surprise" me?

What would you do? Advice, please?

[iDave]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

Aaargh.... I am torn. Should I p1$$ of the Mrs. and buy it right now -- I sooo want it! -- or wait six more weeks until it's my birthday, so that she can "surprise" me?

What would you do? Advice, please?

Well, it's not available until February.

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by iDave

Well, it's not available until February.

Thanks for pointing that out (I missed that). That still (possibly) leaves four weeks......

[solipsism]

Note: This now has the same exact footprint as the AppleTV.

Originally Posted by amac4me

I wish I would have waited. I just bought an external Lacie D2 Quadra 500GB hard drive a few weeks ago. I could have gotten Time Capsule. Oh well.

I just bought a MyBook 1TB HDD and an 802.11n router few weeks back. i wish i would have waited.

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by iDave

Well, it's not available until February.

Cause it isn't available in January.

[jjtiziou]

what will one do once the drive in one of these units fails?

i get the impression that the drive isn't readily accessible, so you're then without a router while you're getting your backup drive fixed... and especially if you have multiple machines constantly backing up to this thing, i could see a drive failure definitely happening at some point.

i *love* the idea of this device, but it would be fantastic if it had an easy access port to swap in the drive (the way that the HDs in macbooks and macpros slide in and out make for such easy access and upgrades or replacements)

even fancier would be to add in an audio port so that it could stream music like the airport express

possibly more far fetched would be to add in a standalone cd drive, to include the remote-CD reading functionality that the new macbook Air models will be using.. but probably not worth the extra costs.

[rols]

Originally Posted by AWAL

AMEN! I was wondering exactly that the second this thing was announced....

I really hope so - it makes a lot of sense, they finally fix time machine to work wirelessly AND make a product out of it as well. I don't want to replace my extreme, I just want to plug my lacie in the back and time machine it.

here's hoping - anyone know for sure?

[PowerMacBandit]

High quality photos I think not. Someone needs to learn that the aperture controls depth of field just as much as it allows more or less light in. With modern DSLRs you can bump the ISO up a bit and use a larger f/stop and bring more of your photo into focus. These photos are all but useless in that there is only a very little bit of the image in focus. This may be artistic if used correctly but it does not lead itself to displaying a new product very well.

[gazerbeam]

Originally Posted by PowerMacBandit

High quality photos I think not. Someone needs to learn that the aperture controls depth of field just as much as it allows more or less light in. With modern DSLRs you can bump the ISO up a bit and use a larger f/stop and bring more of your photo into focus. These photos are all but useless in that there is only a very little bit of the image in focus. This may be artistic if used correctly but it does not lead itself to displaying a new product very well.

then go there and take them yourself. what an ugly comment.

[PowerMacBandit]

Originally Posted by gazerbeam

then go there and take them yourself. what an ugly comment.

I would happily take the photos for them if they wanted to pay for my trip.

As for an ugly comment I think it's simply an opinion just like yours. I didn't curse or say anything rude I simply stated my opinion not unlike you just did.

[Twisted]

7.7 in vs. 6.5 in doesn't describe the difference in area. If those are the linear dimensions of the sides, the footprint is approximately 40% larger. Including the height difference makes the surface area more than 50% larger. Either is more than slight.

[ohkevy]

Originally Posted by PowerMacBandit

High quality photos I think not. Someone needs to learn that the aperture controls depth of field just as much as it allows more or less light in. With modern DSLRs you can bump the ISO up a bit and use a larger f/stop and bring more of your photo into focus. These photos are all but useless in that there is only a very little bit of the image in focus. This may be artistic if used correctly but it does not lead itself to displaying a new product very well.

Being educated in photography I have to agree with this.

[oberpongo]

Originally Posted by jjtiziou;

what will one do once the drive in one of these units fails?

i get the impression that the drive isn't readily accessible, so you're then without a router while you're getting your backup drive fixed... and especially if you have multiple machines constantly backing up to this thing, i could see a drive failure definitely happening at some point.

i *love* the idea of this device, but it would be fantastic if it had an easy access port to swap in the drive (the way that the HDs in macbooks and macpros slide in and out make for such easy access and upgrades or replacements)

even fancier would be to add in an audio port so that it could stream music like the airport express

possibly more far fetched would be to add in a standalone cd drive, to include the remote-CD reading functionality that the new macbook Air models will be using.. but probably not worth the extra costs.

Well here is an idea: Why not hook up the external USB-Superdrive of the MacBook Air to the USB port of Apple TV, Airport Express or Time Capsule and provide the remote Disc

[oberpongo]

Originally Posted by jjtiziou;

what will one do once the drive in one of these units fails?

i get the impression that the drive isn't readily accessible, so you're then without a router while you're getting your backup drive fixed... and especially if you have multiple machines constantly backing up to this thing, i could see a drive failure definitely happening at some point.

i *love* the idea of this device, but it would be fantastic if it had an easy access port to swap in the drive (the way that the HDs in macbooks and macpros slide in and out make for such easy access and upgrades or replacements)

even fancier would be to add in an audio port so that it could stream music like the airport express

possibly more far fetched would be to add in a standalone cd drive, to include the remote-CD reading functionality that the new macbook Air models will be using.. but probably not worth the extra costs.

Thats why apple included Server-grade Hard-Drives. These drives are much more reliable and usally cost 30$ more than standard Desktop drives and are designed for continous 24/7 running unlike external or desktop drives who usuallly only run 8 hours a day.

[digitalclips]

Originally Posted by crees!

The USB drive is for setting up a shared printer. Not sure if it'll recognize a drive.

It does and I managed to get it to do a back up by starting the USB2 drive off attached locally then transferred it to the AE but it was glacially slow.

[vinea]

Originally Posted by oberpongo

Thats why apple included Server-grade Hard-Drives. These drives are much more reliable and usally cost 30$ more than standard Desktop drives and are designed for continous 24/7 running unlike external or desktop drives who usuallly only run 8 hours a day.

They still fail and more often than the MTTF rates would indicate. Google's statistics indicated a 1 in 12 failure rate in the first two years for the drives they owned.

This is why many folks say RAID 10, which can survive a two drive failure, for any data you want to keep.

Also, according to some studies, the number of errors even on a working drive are higher than expected. Which is why some folks preach ZFS and RAIDZ that can tell you about and fix silent data corruption that occurs even in RAID arrays.

Carnegie Mellon's study of approximately 100,000 consumer and enterprise drives concludes that failure rates are, in some cases, 13 times greater than a vendor's published MTTF. Furthermore, their study shows no evidence that FC drives are any more reliable than less-expensive, slower performing SATA drives.

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/...259075,00.html

http://research.google.com/archive/disk_failures.pdf

[chris v]

Originally Posted by PowerMacBandit

High quality photos I think not. Someone needs to learn that the aperture controls depth of field just as much as it allows more or less light in. With modern DSLRs you can bump the ISO up a bit and use a larger f/stop and bring more of your photo into focus. These photos are all but useless in that there is only a very little bit of the image in focus. This may be artistic if used correctly but it does not lead itself to displaying a new product very well.

Okay, this has driven me nuts about AI's product photos for a long time. While I'm grateful for the hard work these folks do to run a nice site, go ahead and set the camera on aperture priority, and try some shots at F16, next time.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by Twisted

7.7 in vs. 6.5 in doesn't describe the difference in area. If those are the linear dimensions of the sides, the footprint is approximately 40% larger. Including the height difference makes the surface area more than 50% larger. Either is more than slight.

Now it's has teh same footprint as the AppleTV instead of the Mac mini. I think this means that the Mac mini is on the way out now that video rentals are here.

[kcdstudios]

No Remote Disk: The hosting disk drive needs to carry special Apple software, which a USB drive attached attached to a router can not do. (I believe)

Further Question: Can I access this when I am out and about? Or is there software that would allow that? One Macbook and One Time Capsule. All my movies and Photos and the like are back home on my TC and I can access it over the internets? Maybe possibly access the TC from an iphone? Does this tech exist now? I'm not sure.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by kcdstudios

No Remote Disk: The hosting disk drive needs to carry special Apple software, which a USB drive attached attached to a router can not do. (I believe)

Further Question: Can I access this when I am out and about? Or is there software that would allow that? One Macbook and One Time Capsule. All my movies and Photos and the like are back home on my TC and I can access it over the internets? Maybe possibly access the TC from an iphone? Does this tech exist now? I'm not sure.

This is something i am wanting but I'm quite certain it's not available now but will be in a future version. I want Back To My Mac capabilities with this device.


You can always access your Mac remotely and then have access to this drive which will connected to the Mac over WiFi, but that requires additional network traffic that i'd like to avoid. Perhaps in the future the Airport Extreme firmware will be released with a stripped down OS X so we can have a more efficient Back To My Mac experience.

[PowerMacBandit]

Originally Posted by kcdstudios

No Remote Disk: The hosting disk drive needs to carry special Apple software, which a USB drive attached attached to a router can not do. (I believe)

Further Question: Can I access this when I am out and about? Or is there software that would allow that? One Macbook and One Time Capsule. All my movies and Photos and the like are back home on my TC and I can access it over the internets? Maybe possibly access the TC from an iphone? Does this tech exist now? I'm not sure.

If it has true NAS capabilities as Apple says it does then you should be able to FTP into the drive from anywhere.

[macintel4me]

This would have been PERFECT if Apple offered a RAID configuration!! Grrrr... what to do?!?

[BoiseMacDan]

I would like to see some convergence in some of these products. I want just one device. I want an AppleTV that IS the base station, AirTunes, Time Capsule, with a SuperDrive that can be used in with the Macbook Air. I know it would cost more. It really sounds like a specialized Mac Mini. I think it would be worth the extra cost. Maybe you could make all these options build to order to some extent?

[roehlstation]

Originally Posted by crees!

The USB drive is for setting up a shared printer. Not sure if it'll recognize a drive.

It depends if the software will allow you to name the internal and external drive separately, if it can there is no reason you couldn't plug in an external drive, you won't be RAIDing anything though.

[roehlstation]

Originally Posted by solipsism

Now it's has teh same footprint as the AppleTV instead of the Mac mini. I think this means that the Mac mini is on the way out now that video rentals are here.

They'll keep the Mac mini for those people that want a Mac to be used as a computer for less than $800.

[roehlstation]

Originally Posted by macintel4me

This would have been PERFECT if Apple offered a RAID configuration!! Grrrr... what to do?!?

RAID?! so if one drive goes you lose everything? The only RAID i see as useful is Mirror. Too many times I've had computers come into the shop that were Striped and I had to explain to the customer that one of the drives failed so everything is lost because you can't recover anything and you can't back anything up. With single 1-1.5 TB drives out there for less than $300 I can't see wanting to stripe drives anymore, I still don't like to go with anything larger than 250 GB because that is a lot of data to lose at one time.

[ajmas]

Originally Posted by gazerbeam

then go there and take them yourself. what an ugly comment.

Its a mixed comment, since there is some useful advice in there. Poor photographs to a photographer are as bad to an out of tune instrument to a musician. If the AI staff are willing to experiment a little I am sure there are some photographers here who are willing to give some free advice BTW Being a digital SLR it costs nothing to experiment.

[SpinDrift]

I think it's great. I'll be getting one as soon as possible.

[SpinDrift]

Originally Posted by ajmas

BTW Being a digital SLR it costs nothing to experiment.

You are a digital camera? Wow, AI on those things really is advanced these days, they can even post on forums!

[dsesvak]

Originally Posted by roehlstation

RAID?! so if one drive goes you lose everything? The only RAID i see as useful is Mirror. Too many times I've had computers come into the shop that were Striped and I had to explain to the customer that one of the drives failed so everything is lost because you can't recover anything and you can't back anything up. With single 1-1.5 TB drives out there for less than $300 I can't see wanting to stripe drives anymore, I still don't like to go with anything larger than 250 GB because that is a lot of data to lose at one time.

RAID striping is for video usage where simultaneously writing to two drives (instead of queuing writes to a single drive until the head is ready again) is necessary to allow for the fastest possible video capture. RAID striping is still a necessary setup for certain users.

I am guessing that most of the contributors to this thread that refer to RAIDing drives intend to mirror their drives.

But yes, I have many times had to tell a customer that RAID striping means that one drive failure = both drives fail. "But that's why I have the second drive in there!" /faceplant

RAID 5 is where it's at imo. I wish the Mac Pro supported it natively without that ridiculously expensive card.

[vinea]

Originally Posted by roehlstation

RAID?! so if one drive goes you lose everything? The only RAID i see as useful is Mirror. Too many times I've had computers come into the shop that were Striped and I had to explain to the customer that one of the drives failed so everything is lost because you can't recover anything and you can't back anything up. With single 1-1.5 TB drives out there for less than $300 I can't see wanting to stripe drives anymore, I still don't like to go with anything larger than 250 GB because that is a lot of data to lose at one time.

Which shop so I can avoid yours? RAID 5 can survive a one disk failure. RAID 10 can survive a multiple disk failure (if you are lucky and didn't lose a complete pair...otherwise just a single disk failure). RAID 5 is striped with distributed parity.

Yes RAID unless you like to lose 1-1.5TB worth of data when a drive goes.

The best thing would be raid-z2 + hot spare since it also recovers from corruption with a RAID array wont. This is why a lot of folks were hoping for ZFS on Leopard.