Filed under: Macworld, Accessories, Analysis / Opinion, Airport, Internet, Apple, Leopard
Time Capsule backs up your Macs
And perhaps most amazing is the sheer size available-- it's $399 for a 500gb hard drive, and $499 for a 1 TB hard drive. Sure, that's a little pricey if you've got only one or two computers at home, but $500 for a complete (and completely wireless) backup solution for a house full of computers is a pretty nice setup. This definitely won't cause as much of a stir as the iPhone updates or the MacBook Air today, but for someone who's been seeking a backup solution for a whole house of computers, Time Capsule has to be pretty good news.
It's available for preorder right now, and will release in February.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Scott said 2:50PM on 1-15-2008
I believe the price is $299 for the 500GB version.
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Pete Zich said 2:50PM on 1-15-2008
I currently don't back up my laptop because of this hassle, I'm definitely considering this.
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samfish said 2:50PM on 1-15-2008
$400 bucks?
Sheesh, gouge us a little harder, Apple.
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Jon Niola said 2:53PM on 1-15-2008
It really is not that bad of a price for the feature set.
I know people who bought a Drobo to fulfill this role and that is quite a bit more - $700 dollars with the NAS option and no drives installed if I recall. And it does not serve as a base station or anything like that.
Tony said 2:59PM on 1-15-2008
It's not gouging at all. Look at the price of competing 500GB and 1TB NAS (key word: NAS) drives, then consider this one is also an Airport Extreme base station.
Fritz Laurel said 2:50PM on 1-15-2008
I don't understand. What's the difference between this and the Airport they released last Summer?
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Rae Whitlock said 4:31PM on 1-15-2008
The hard drive.
Jimmy said 2:53PM on 1-15-2008
so does this mean my current airport will be able to back-up wirelessly via time machine and an attached usb hard drive now?
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sys_ops911 said 3:53PM on 1-15-2008
I was just wondering the same thing - I JUST Bought a second airport for an extended n network and am frustrated at the lack of backup to airdisk. There are a ton of things released this year that, if they aren't going to retro them, basically is giving dedicated customers the middle finger.
Also, is the 1TB capable of striping or mirroring? What about using two airdisks as a soft raid?
the other steve jobs said 8:32PM on 1-15-2008
um - the ability to use a AEBS with an external drive for Time Machine was actually a feature as listed on the Time Machine webpage.
So, i have a hell of a lot more gripes about this than with normal "newer = better" because i know that i, and many others, believed the website.
ljun said 2:55PM on 1-15-2008
$400 is CHEAP! consider that a 1TB hard drive runs about $250-300, PLUS you get the airport extreme.
Definitely buying this one for the fam!
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Patrick M. Hausen said 2:56PM on 1-15-2008
@Fritz Laurel:
1. The builtin hard disk drive
2. The ability to use it with Time Machine
And I really really hope they will update the Airport
Extreme's firmware to add #2 with an external drive
instead of turning my Extreme into an expensive door
stop. I bought this thing specifically for backup purposes
...
Patrick
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Ryan said 3:25PM on 1-15-2008
I did the exact same thing, buying the extreme when it came out.
This product pisses me off if they don't enable 10.5 to backup to what I already own.
Michael said 3:06PM on 1-15-2008
This is a really good idea, assuming it's a real NAS. We've got three Macs in our house, all of which are bursting at the seams with growing iTunes libraries. If I can move those three individual libraries to a central, networked drive, that'll remove a big headache. (Does anyone know if that'll work?) I've been looking at NAS drives. They are not cheap. This is competitively priced if it works.
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James said 1:12PM on 1-16-2008
Supposedly the disk will also work as just a regular disk that can be accessed remotely. However, if you're planning to offload all of your music from the laptops to Time Capsule, that's a bad idea. The purpose of this thing is for backup. If you only have one copy in one location that defeats the whole purpose of this thing.
What you want is a home server. Something that has redundancy.
The idea of this is that you keep whatever it is on your computer and then use Time Capsule as a backup device, that way if either one dies you still have a way to recover your data.
I want to see Apple release a home server that would include some kind of redundant disk array. Either RAID or something like what Microsoft did with Windows Home Server where you could add more disks that didn't necessarily have to be the same size.
Of course, knowing Apple in their never ending quest for simplicity will make it not user upgradeable and it will cost an arm and a leg. But it would probably look nice and function well :-).
Billy K said 3:09PM on 1-15-2008
This is the hidden gem of the Keynote, and a great deal. Have a look at the cost of any other 1TB NAS all you complainers. Oh yeah, it's a 802.11N wireless router, too.
Sometimes I think you guys don't even RTFA before you start bitching.
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Michael said 3:16PM on 1-15-2008
Yeah, the more I think about it, the router/hard drive combo is nice. One less device to clutter up the workspace. The downside: If the router or drive craps out, you need to replace both.
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mick129 said 3:25PM on 1-15-2008
@jimmy I'd love to know that too. It was a promised feature of Leopard that was yanked before release but is obviously now implemented. Not giving the feature to Airports as an upgrade would be a dick move.
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JMH said 3:10PM on 1-20-2008
Ditto on that comment -I have 3 AEBs at present - would love to turn in one or all three for credit towards a solution like this - if it works .... somewhat skeptical.
Michael Raisanen said 3:33PM on 1-15-2008
If this thing would come with airtunes it would be perfection.
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