It's possible there will be an AxBS update. I'm not holding my breath, but remember that Apple (partly due to previous lawsuits about promised features, like maximum possible RAM) doesn't disclose anything until it's either really ready and they have an approximate shipping date, or it's actually available. In this case, because of the anger, if they have such a firmware update in the lab, you can bet it's not being announced until they're ready to push it out.

It's so frustrating that this functionality isn't available to current AEBS owners. I really do hope it comes out in an update; I really do.

I have mixed emotion on this.

On the one hand, it'd be nice to have this functionality on something I purchased only a month before the TC was announced, but on the other hand if I want to back up with TM (which I don't), I would just plug in the drive locally anyway.

The unsupported disk feature isn't safe. When the disk gets full, bad things happen to the data. That's why it's unsupported.

They presumably fixed those issues in the Time Capsule.

--Sam

Sam is correct... There is no way I would trust unsupported features with *backup* data.

I'm simply not cynical enough to believe that Apple pulled this feature from AxBS because someone in the company decided they'd make more money supporting it only on Time Capsule. On the contrary, Time Capsule's pricing is actually pretty good, and I suspect it would have been cheaper in the long run not to design, engineer, and test a new product---*assuming that was possible*. That is, it would have been a better moneymaker for Apple to sell the existing AxBS plus a USB disk as a "Time Capsule", instead of creating one themselves.

My worry, then, is that Apple discovered a catastrophic problem at the last minute involving AxBS & Time Capsule that *cannot* be fixed with a firmware update. So that leaves three choices:
1. the current AxBS is perfectly safe for use with Time Machine, but Apple has purposefully disabled it to sell Time Capsule
2. the current AxBS requires a firmware update to use with Time Machine that has not yet been delivered; Apple may or may not deliver it in the future.
3. the current AxBS can *never* be made fully fit for use with Time Machine due to hardware issues.
It seems to me that 2 and 3, together at least, are far more likely than 1. Thus it seems unreasonably risky to trust these backdoor Time Machine hacks at this time.

My worry, then, is that Apple discovered a catastrophic problem at the last minute involving AxBS & Time Capsule

Oops, I meant AxBS & Time Machine. Sorry.

Yes, only one drive in the Time Capsule. Don't sound so shocked.

So your data is on your PC/Mac's hard drive, and a copy is now on the time capsule. So that's your data on two drives.

If you backup to an external drive using a RAID setup with two or more drives, then you're not the average joe customer that this product is designed for. Time Capsule is designed to make backup silly-easy for those who don't bother.

One drive is an issue. Remember, this is a shared drive, period. It is not a "Tima Machine" drive and it should not be expected that the sole contents of the drive is duplicate (backup) data. I personally would not use it at all for Time Machine, I would use it for shared files.

You can connect a Drobo to a Time Capsule and back up to the Drobo.

Unfortunately, I already have an AEBS, don't feel like shelling out the money for another one.

From the site: "Use at your own risk. There are still some bugs when using Time Machine over the network."

I wish I had bookmarked the original thread here saying it was unreliable. A backup solution can't have bugs. It must work all the time. Backup solutions aren't toys. Time machine with one hard drive is safe, so long as you don't turn on Filevault which is incompatible, are running a patched copy of Aperature (if that's something you use). Time machine with multiple hard drives, according to contacts at Rush Limbaugh can be buggy.

--Sam

--Sam

I just tried iTimeMachine on my 10.5.2 machine. It allows me to select a share on my NAS as a Time Machine destination, but Time Machine is unable to create the sparse image file.