Apple's AirPort Utility points to next-gen Time Capsule, AirPort Extreme - Page 2

I have 3 Macs backing up to an AirDisk connected to an Airport Extreme (N, not dual-band), and they've been working fine for over a year. I think the process I followed was this:

Connect drive to Airport extreme
Mount AirDisk on computer
Direct Time Machine to use AirDisk as backup drive
Start Time Machine

It wasn't any more complicated than that. It takes a hell of a long time to backup initially, but then it's fine. I only backup once a day (around 3 am) using "Time Machine Editor" and I haven't had any problems.

What if one of the new features of the next gen Time Capsule is an offsite backup option using iCloud? I know there are 3rd party hacks for the Time Capsule to perform this functionality. But, it would be pretty cool if it were an Apple sanctioned feature.

It actually makes no sense at all.

1. There are many types of DSL, as stated before.
2. The extra overhead of adding DSL support, and getting it approved for all the various telephone networks around the world is unnecessary added expense. Apple has even dropped regular modems from their computers.
3. The lowest common denominator for broadband is Ethernet. Cable, Fiber, and DSL modems all support Ethernet.
4. The DSL market is extremely small (especially in the US, which is Apple's biggest market). I know of exactly ONE person who uses DSL - and it's not working now because the major US provider that starts with a 'V' has not bothered to fix it for the past 5 months. Everyone else I know uses FiOS (fiber to the home) or Cable.
5. Separating the DSL modem and the router means that one can upgrade them independently. Say you no longer have DSL, now your combined DSL modem-router is useless to you. Or maybe you upgrade your service which requires a new modem?

Hi,

Living in a rural area with a maxed 500k internet connection has made me wonder what use the cloud will have for folks like me. Reading this post, it seems possible that Apple could create a buffering function so TimeCapsule would create a localized backup that would backup further to the cloud over the course of the day when I am not home. The more I think about it, the more attractive the options seems in such a scenario. Ideas?

This would be great! Won't have to leave my mac on just to watch movies anymore!

The best new feature I can imagine for a revamped Apple wireless router would be to include an OpenVPN server. Of course Apple products all include VPN client software already but having a VPN server built into your home wireless router would make Apple's products less dependent on running a Mac or PC at home. Having a VPN server at your home means that whenever you are at a remote location you could use an encrypted tunnel to your home internet connection and all your network traffic would be secure from any possible mischief from other nearby patrons at the Starbucks hotspot you might be using.

It would almost certainly add complexity to the code and user experience but OpenVPN is open source software and this would be a nice proactive move to improve security for all those burgeoning Apple mobile devices.

Has Apple changed the design of the Time Capsule to allow it to run cooler and not burn up?[/QUOTE]

I put mine on a cheap plastic laptop cooler and supported it with 4 ½ hex nuts for better air circulation.

I have also stacked three of these laptop coolers and put ATVs/Modem/etc. on them.

Everything runs cool!

You don't trust Time Machine on a Time Capsule, but you will trust an Airport Extreme using USB instead of on-board SATA with an extremely slow CPU (of which USB relies on) to be more reliable?

There's a reason why Apple doesn't support it. And for backups, I wouldn't trust it either.

And I wasn't aware Time Capsules failed often, but that's not the point.

Do you think the average iPhone user is going to configure a VPN client when they're away from home? What security would this provide that is meaningful to the average consumer? It would only serve to slow their data service down and add needless complexity to setting them up.

VPN is a fringe feature for consumers - Cisco has routers to do what you want.

I wish that too, but I doubt it. iCloud is the new strategy for disseminating music to your devices.

You may already know this but it is worth noting that client VPN configuration is already built into the Settings app (General -> Network -> VPN) for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. It is also built into the Network pane of System Preferences for the Mac. There is no command line magic incantation needed to use it. This is not a fringe feature except that only business users usually have servers available.

The security problem here is the tendency to "depend on the kindness of strangers" when it is simply not necessary. These devices are all mobile and will be used at public hotspots where others have the option to examine and capture all your data packets. Generally this does not matter but there are schmucks who will gladly use cracking tools to take advantage of any lapses. Having ubiquitous personal VPN servers would nicely differentiate Apple products from others when incidents arise due to nasty strangers who feast on unencrypted packets.

It can be done without twin drives TC. Think about it this way. Your Mac iTunes library already backed up to TC. So why not have the ability to access these contents from other iTunes on the network as well as AppleTV. It is already stored in two places, your Mac and TC

I do the same thing (2 Macs) making wireless TM, SuperDuper & Chronosync backups via an AEBS Gen 2 with 6 AirDisks connected to it via a powered USB hub.

The trick to the initial backup is to connect your Mac to the AEBS via an ethernet cable for this first backup - this will dramatically increase the speed of that first full backup. One you disconnect the ethernet cable TM will simply update the sparsebundle file that was created wirelessly. (Just need to ensure that the AirDisk is mounted on your Mac so that TM can find it.)

Don't connect the target HDD directly to your Mac via USB for the initial backup because TM will create the backup in a different format (not sparsebundle), meaning that you then can't update it wirelessly.

This setup is a little flaky admittedly (which is presumably why Apple pulled support for this approach from Leopard, and eventually launched the Time Capsule instead). I was incensed at the time though because I had specifically gone and bought an AEBS + external drives based on the fact that Apple had stated that Leopard would support this approach...

Interestingly, the flakiness seems to be related to TM itself rather than the physical setup because I never seem to have any issues with the SuperDuper backups or Chronosync.

Oh well, perhaps this next gen will be worth upgrading too and I can avoid having to recreate my TM backup every few months...

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...8&postcount=18

For what it's worth, here is my strategy.

I have a 13" MacBook Pro connected to a cinema display. The MacBook streams media to an AppleTV, my iPhone, and my iPad. The display powers down when I'm not in front of the machine, and I keep the MacBook running 24/7.

All of my media is on a Drobo connected via USB. I back up the Drobo every night to an external 2GB USB drive, and I swap the 2GB drive with an off-site drive every two weeks. The MacBook itself is backed up to an external 1GB USB drive, which in turn is backed up to the Drobo twice per week.

It sounds complicated, but there are at least two copies of everything. Backups and off-site backups protect me from disasters, and the Drobo protects me from drive failures.

I've been rambling about this for what seems like forever now...

To improve the cloud UX you need something that can sit between your iDevices and the cloud.

The "iHub" could act as just another device connected to your cloud network. When your phone needs to sync something and you are on Wifi at home, it should first sync to your "iHub", then your "iHub" can sync to the cloud.

The same logic applies for downloads, updates etc.






Does iCloud allow for streaming to iDevices or just syncing? There is no reason that the "iHub" couldn't be an iCloud sync target for your media library and then share that content up to your home via Home Sharing.

ASDL routers manage to be backwards compatible with older versions this would be
adding an ADSL modem (in addition) to the existing option of using an external modem for cable connections.


If dodgy chinese manufactures can do this and still sell routers for next to nothing, I'm sure Apple could do it. Apple dropped 56k modems because nobody used them anymore... Lots of people still use broadband.


Nobody is suggesting taking that away. Just making it unnecessary for a large percentage of users.


Apple is a global company. Here in the UK, everyone I know uses ADSL. Which is clearly why I'm for this idea, and you are against it. But the components involved are so cheep, I'm pretty sure Apple could make this change at no additional cost to the user... As they often do when adding new features.


I don't think you are getting it. You would still be able to use a separate modem. It would make no difference to you whatsoever, Just don't turn on the built in modem.

As it stands, you have to have a filter plugged into your phone-line... which connects to a wireless ADSL modem router from your broadband supplier... which has to be powered, so is plugged into the mains... and has the wireless turned off as it isn't necessary... as it is then connected via ethernet to your Apple Time Capsule/AirPort Extreme... which also needs to be plugged into the mains.

As you can see that is an awful lot of cables and unnecessary equipment.

I just want one box from Apple that does all that, which can also operate exactly as it did before, for people like you. Getting everyone access to the cloud is Apples strategy at the moment, Apple also like to make things simple and easy for people... but setting up wireless broadband can be a pain for non-technical people. Surely, one box that works as easily as possible, in any situation, is exactly what Apple and their users want?

This whole combined DSL modem discussion is pretty much moot for business reasons. The telcos don't want to do it. They want to have their own modems. That way they can maintain control of the customer setup and ensure that customers are provisioned and authenticated and supported the way they want them to be. It's a non-starter even if it makes some technical sense.

The implementation of dual networks - an internal (private /encrypted), and an external (unencrypted / guest network) was an excellent idea (and made me buy the basestation for that sole feature).
The implementation however is flawed: it assumes you do not have any dns servers inside your internal network.

In the Apple design, both networks (internal and guest) share the same DNS configuration (how stupid) as configured in DHCP.
If you do have a private DNS inside your network, and you do not allow the guest network to connect to internal addresses (which is exactly why you would have dual networks), then the guests can't reach your internal DNS and need to configure manually an external DNS server, which is too much hassle or too complex for most "visitors".

I have submitted bug reports and service requests, but after more then 3 years Apple still hasn't found this setup important enough to provide a solution.

Apple should open-source the firmware or at least provide details on how to configure the airport over snmp v3 as the current administration and logging options are really too limited.
--
Peter
(somewhere in Switzerland)