Airport Extreme owners not happy to be left out of Time Capsule
By Nilay Patel 
posted January 21st 2008 2:32PM
posted January 21st 2008 2:32PM
posted January 21st 2008 2:32PM
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For those who don't quite get the issue, there's a thread in the Apple forums with more detail
feed://discussions.apple.com/rss/rssmessages.jspa?threadID=1342133
I'm not inclined to believe that Apple pulled support for Airport Extreme disks from Time Machine at the last minute because some marketing genius walked into Steve's office with the idea for Time Capsule. It seems more likely to me that they found some bug in the Airport Extreme/USB disk combo that they have been unable to fix. Long before Time Machine I had considerable difficulty getting an Airport Extreme attached disk to work with SuperDuper.
I doubt it. They are trying to figure out how to "not" allow a user to use a NAS device as a backup device, but somehow allow the AirportExtreme Only (since its just a router paired with NAS capability) as well as the Time Capsule.
Keep those doors closed, Apple.
That doesn't follow from the facts. If Apple was trying to keep things as closed as you describe, it would actually be a step *up* for me, because I have an Airport Extreme that cannot reliably be used as a NAS. In fact, I think that people had better be careful with these hacks that enable the use of Time Machine with the Airport Extreme. I am not the only one who has had problems with its disk support, so I wouldn't dare trust it with Time Machine at this point.
You're closer to truth than you think. I'll leave it there.
What Apple did this time with the Time Capsule has changed the way I buy things from them anymore. I can no longer trust anything their marketing or website say about ANYTHING. If it weren't for the user reviews I would have no faith in any of their products for that matter.
The current Airport Extreme doesn't even support USB Disks as it is. Anyone who has one knows you can connect to it once, but let your laptop go to sleep and you have to restart the base station to connect to it again...
Time Capsule supports wireless Time Machine backups... I'll believe it when someone buys it, uses it for a few weeks, and talks about it in their support forums. Shame on Apple for lying about what their products can do.
They did lie about what there products can do. The bugs with USB AirDisks will be fixed.
As far as Time Capsule not working with Time Machine, that a bit ridiculous...
Yah, aple is constantly screwing people. BAD APPLE!
"it certainly seems like Airport Extreme owners just got a raw deal."
No, we DID get a raw deal.
I didn't read whether someone has said this or not, but even though you can back up wirelessly after setting the drive up with it directly connected to the Mac, there is still the problem of restoring wirelessly. After reading experiments, tries, failed, attempts, etc, you're still not getting full features wirelessly.
Just to clarify, the Airport Extreme does support wireless NAS with an attached USB disk on Leapard.
It *doesn't* currently support TimeMachine to a wireless NAS straight out of the box (which is what this article is all about).
IT DOESN'T WORK RIGHT.
Read some of the other posts. Apple said Airport Extreme could share a disk, but then never made it work right. And now apparently their solution is to just announce a new model without ever making the one people already paid for work right.
I'm a relatively new Mac user (since Aug 07) and I've been frustrated with Tiger and Leopard's poor networking ability. I bought an Airport Extreme thinking it'd be better, but it's not. I finally gave up on Time Machine altogether (even connected directly I had problems).
Now I'm booting to Windows XP using VMware Fusion and backing up over the network to my Windows XP desktop and everything works great!
Windows networking is so much more reliable than OS X. Once you get it working it just works! And a mounted network drive works just like a physical drive, so you don't have to worry about software (like Time Machine) not supporting a network disk!
10.5.2 solves all.
http://babygotmac.com/a/leopard-1052-update-adds-dvd-sharing-better-stacks-translucent-menu-bar-and-remote-backup/
It's fixes nearly every problem with Leopard! Translucent menu bar, NAS, Stacks has a folder view and adds some new features like DVD sharing.
Everyone complaining saying they bought a airport + USB HDD before leopard to use a "promised" feature.. shut up, nothing was "promised" it was on a list of features that clearly stated at the end that they are subject to change. So they never promised anything.
Really? Did they say "features subject to change" on the Airport Extreme web page when it was released? Or was that, in fact, only stated on the Leopard preview site. I think you'll find that the Airport Extreme web pages made no such disclaimer and that the product was misrepresented.
How anyone, particularly a Mac user, can not be annoyed at this is beyond me. I hate the stereotypes of Mac users being sheep but at times I honestly believe that some are and I hate defending you. We're not all idiots but apparently some are.
Time Capsule is not an effective backup solution... it only has a single disk that is (by nature of being a single disk) prone to failure. No redundancy!
The really cute thing is that when it fails, you lose all your backups from multiple machines.
If you are serious about backup to disk minimum you should be considering mirroring, preferably a raid solution.
Time Capsule is not an effective backup solution... it only has a single disk that is (by nature of being a single disk) prone to failure. No redundancy!
The really cute thing is that when it fails, you lose all your backups from multiple machines.
If you are serious about backup to disk minimum you should be considering mirroring, preferably a raid solution.
Well, the thing is, you do have redundancy-- you have the copy on the machine you're backing up from, and the copy on the backup volume (Time Capsule).
- If your machine dies, you get a new one and pull your backups from Time Capsule.
- If Time Capsule dies, you get a new one and back up again from your machine.
It's no different than what you would have with mirrored drives-- if one died, you'd replace it. If the other dies before you get a chance to replace the other, you're screwed.
I would think that as soon as the time capsule ships the airdisk time machine backup will work. Time capsule is nothing more then a airport extreme with a HD, so if time machine works with time capsule it will work with airdisk.
There is a huge (400mb) update coming addressing a lot of issues. I feel like Apple being Apple will correct the situation for us airdisk guys and try to make some money by selling a "new product" at the same time.
I can understand people being upset over the touch update, but this is ridiculous. AirEx customers bought a fancy router, that's what they got. The time capsule doesn't change that. Apple came out with something new, tough s*** guys.
When you buy something, try to realize that chances are it will always perform the same functions and something better will come out.
I apologize in advance if the answer to this question is obvious, or already been stated...
I don't have an Airport Extreme. What I have is an iMac, and a macbook pro, and 1TB external HD. Up to now, my plan was to partition the drive, and hook up directly via USB to the imac. Use Partition 1 as Time Machine for iMac, and hopefully share Partition 2 as wireless drive to macbook pro, which would use partition 2 as its Time Machine drive.
Will this work now? (pre 10.5.2?) Is it just AEBS connected drives with the issue? Or any wireless networked drive (my hypothetical above included)?
Thanks in advance!
Welcome to the world of Apple. Apple abandoning and shafting loyal customers goes back to the Apple II to IIgs to Mac transitions.
Seems like apple wants to sell the new product ditching old product...Like they did with Macbook Pro and upgrade kit...in the end...airport extreme users are screwed...
Just kidding...heheheh
backup and changing the home folder location to a networked drive/computer is a downfall of apple's for sure. still the best overall, and i could forgive it if i could hook up a drobo to the usb on my airport extreme. add me to the list of pissed off people!