But mechanical hard drives (particularly the 5400RPM models used in external drives) are never really going to exceed USB2.0 specifications.
That's complete nonsense. Hard Drives, even 5400 rpm versions, far exceed the capability of USB2. If they didn't, there would have been no reason for the existence of Firewire 800 drive enclosures, and outboard USB2 drives would be just as fast as internal drives.
There's absolutely no excuse for not upgrading the port on the Airport to USB3. It tarnishes the brand with the appearance of petty cheapness.
So that means you can buy a cheaper Airport Extreme Basestation and add an Hard Drive yourself?
I don't think the AE has the required SATA commenter on the logic board. If you could do it, you might end up spending close to the cost of a TC depending in the connecter parts and choice of hard drive.
Of course it's similar. The only real difference between the two is one has a hard drive and backs up data and the other one doesn't. I wouldn't expect them to do much else that what they are doing. About the only thing I could see Apple doing is selling a hard drive kit with the various other clips and attachments to upgrade from a Extreme to a Time Capsule and also requiring a firmware upgrade. But doing it that way would more confusing to the average Joe Blow, it would increase support costs, especially since a lot of people might not be able to install the drive and firmware properly, thus requiring more after sale support.
The way they are doing makes sense. There are reasons to buy both products, but functionally they do the same exact thing only one backs up data and the other doesn't. I'm wondering when they are going to offer a SSD version. God, do I hate hard drives.
It is painful to have to go back to a spinning drive once you have used an SSD. I wonder if going to the PCI based storage has a similar effect?
So does this mean I can get an Airport Extreme, and then insert a decent network hard drive rather than the mismatched Barracuda that Apple is shipping with the Time Capsule? A Western Digital Red would be perfect for this device — you want the coolest running drive you can get for a sealed casing like this, and a drive with network-oriented firmware for this purpose — but Apple just had to go and put in something completely unsuitable, a hotter-running, slightly faster drive that's oriented toward desktop computers rather than network backup, just because it's cheap.
I don't care for Seagate drives, but didn't the WD red drives have a fairly high failure rate? Not sure if that was one particular batch or a general trend but remember reading about it. Seagate drives are definitely bottom of the barrel though.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by Misa
But mechanical hard drives (particularly the 5400RPM models used in external drives) are never really going to exceed USB2.0 specifications.
That's complete nonsense. Hard Drives, even 5400 rpm versions, far exceed the capability of USB2. If they didn't, there would have been no reason for the existence of Firewire 800 drive enclosures, and outboard USB2 drives would be just as fast as internal drives.
There's absolutely no excuse for not upgrading the port on the Airport to USB3. It tarnishes the brand with the appearance of petty cheapness.
Wonder when we will see 802.11ad support -- which could be a big deal for short distance file transfers...
See:
http://www.techspot.com/news/51343-7gbps-wireless-on-the-way-wigig-80211ad-adopted-by-ieee.html
I don't think the AE has the required SATA commenter on the logic board. If you could do it, you might end up spending close to the cost of a TC depending in the connecter parts and choice of hard drive.
It is painful to have to go back to a spinning drive once you have used an SSD. I wonder if going to the PCI based storage has a similar effect?
I don't care for Seagate drives, but didn't the WD red drives have a fairly high failure rate? Not sure if that was one particular batch or a general trend but remember reading about it. Seagate drives are definitely bottom of the barrel though.