Time Capsule first impressions

Okay, so we've got our Time Capsule up and running here -- we'll be back with a full review once our full 516GB backup is completed, but here are some quick first impressions:

• You can definitely hear the disks spin up and access. It also sounds like there's a fan in there, but there are no obvious vents for one and we can't feel any air coming out, so the drives might just be that loud.
  
• The top is getting quite warm during the backup -- we'll see if it cools down once we stop hitting the drive this hard, but if there really isn't a fan we're a little concerned. Hope those server-grade hard drives like being cooked.
  
• You can't transfer an existing Time Machine backup to Time Capsule. Sure, it's easy enough to switch back and get at your old data, but it's still a pain -- and now we have a 1TB drive sitting here with months of backups on it that we can't erase and reuse.
• Time Machine doesn't prioritize network activity on your machine, so it's slamming our network connection right now as it backs up. That's not a huge problem since we're backing up over Ethernet, but we'll see what happens when we try this over WiFi later.
• We tried to back up a second machine while the first was in progress, and not much happened -- it created the disk image and got to "Preparing..." and then did nothing. We're assuming these can only happen one at a time.
  
• The wireless side of things is basically the same as the Airport Extreme, nothing shocking there, although the setup assistant has been substantially revised to make things easier.
  
• The setup assistant now asks if you already have a 2.4GHz network and offers to create a 5GHz secondary network, which is interesting.

That's about it for now -- there's not much we can try out while this backup is in progress. Anything else you guys want to know?

[Flashpoint @ Feb 29th 2008 1:35PM]

I sat through server training at Lexington/53rd yesterday for the new Apple Leopard Server.

At first glance, the system is remarkable. It lets you see all your backups in a long row leading towards a Black Hole. You choose the date of restore and then drag it towards the restore point and the computer will go into restore mode and its done. You can choose whether or not to keep or delete the new change you just made.

This was obviously designed with the time capsule in mind.

The best thing about Leopard Server and Time Machine is that if you happen to be running Mac groups like I am, you can choose to make the computers auto delete records on specific dates and times. The system also features MOBILITY which synchs cache files to whatever desktop a user uses and can delete them later on.

[Carl @ Feb 29th 2008 1:40PM]

So you were backing up over ethernet? how come not wifi? I assume transfer speeds for 516GB.

Also I'm assuming you can specify a date and time to backup. So like say when your sleeping and not needing to use alot of bandwidth. I guess this dosn't apply if you don't sleep or run a 24hr business.

[Nilay Patel @ Feb 29th 2008 1:44PM]

We're using Ethernet for now so we can get the initial backup done quickly and actually start digging into the thing -- this would take hours longer over WiFi.

[FL @ Feb 29th 2008 1:35PM]

Can it be partitioned? Thanks.

[Nick @ Feb 29th 2008 1:42PM]

The evil Giz said "say you buy the 500GB Time Capsule, and want to use an external 1TB drive to do all your serious backing up. When you connect it via USB, it is automatically visible in both the AirPort Utility and the Time Machine on your Mac. What you can't do is merge the two to make one massive 1.5TB volume, though. You have to choose one or the other."

[FL @ Mar 2nd 2008 11:35PM]

Ok, to answer my own question: Macworld claims that AirPort Utility does not support partitioning of the drive.

http://forums.macworld.com/message/620287#620287

Hmm... Engadget editors, would you please try partitioning the drive in a firewire/USB enclosure and then putting it back into Time Capsule?

[Fivepoint @ Feb 29th 2008 1:35PM]

The only TWO things I want to know are the following:

1) When it is backing up over Wi-Fi, how much does your network speeds decrease? Is there a noticeable change in download speed of a simple website?

2) When it is backing up over Wi-Fi, does it slow the computer down at all due to processor/RAM use? It does a good amount just over Firewire, so I would assume the same slowdowns can be expected here... if not worse.

[Ty @ Feb 29th 2008 1:36PM]

Anyone know what "server grade" hard drive is actually in there?

[Reid @ Feb 29th 2008 3:40PM]

Probably sourced from multiple manufacturers like all other "server grade" (hah) hard drives.

Hell, I've had IBM ship me systems with 2 different brands of hard disk in the same RAID system.

So I doubt Apple is limiting it to one drive of manufacturer. Same specs though probably.

[Ed @ Feb 29th 2008 1:37PM]

How does it stack up compared to HP's MediaSmart Home Server and WHS in general?

[Kris @ Feb 29th 2008 1:41PM]

Probably not well at all since they're two different things. WHS is a great solution for home and small business users to have a server to back-up items as well as other srerver-like functionality. Time Capsule is just a back-up device.

[Zak @ Feb 29th 2008 1:42PM]

It's not a home server, it's NAS that also happens to be a WAP/router. It's not as versatile as a server, but it's just aimed at people who need a good (read: easy, simple) backup solution for one or more computers and a router/WAP. The NAS side of it is just a bonus. I have a friend who doesn't have a wireless router, and needs a good backup solution so I'm going to tell him to get a Time Capsule since it solves a couple of his problems at once.

[MacBookOwner @ Feb 29th 2008 1:44PM]

Hopefully it has fewer data corrupting bugs than Windows Server :p

[Andrew @ Feb 29th 2008 2:04PM]

@MacBookOwner: Hopefully it won't drop connection, like Mac OS X Leopard.

[MacBookOwner @ Feb 29th 2008 2:14PM]

Andrew,
lol, I hear ya.
Actually, hoping moving to a 5Ghz band will clear up my dropout issue, as my neighborhood seems to be 2.4Ghz saturation city right now, on every channel.

[LJKelley @ Feb 29th 2008 2:40PM]

Well just like WHS it seems you can only backup one computer at a time. However, appearently unlike WHS it doesn't merge all your drives as one storage pool for backups and automatically place files where this free space.

And yes obviously WHS does more but I think the original question was more about backup. Obviously the other pro with WHS is that you can install it on any old computer.

The obvious pro with Time Capsule is that you don't need an extra device on wasting power... its multifunction. As long as you don't require the Media capabilities of the WHS. I don't think it would be hard though for Apple to expand the functionality to more directly compete with WHS. I would seriously love a router with built in WHS (or similar).

[Patrick Cheung @ Feb 29th 2008 1:40PM]

1. Does it turn off the hard drive when there is no one using it?
2. Can you use an external hard drive with it through the USB port?
3. Is the speed okay when performing a search in the shared volume? Or is it painfully slow?
4. Does it still drop every connection when you modify NAT port mapping?

[Reid @ Feb 29th 2008 3:43PM]

I would say almost guaranteed that it spins the disk down. Even my Mac Pro spins down extra/unused hard drives as I don't use them; no doubt a standalone backup-only appliance would do the same.

[MacBookOwner @ Feb 29th 2008 1:43PM]

"The setup assistant now asks if you already have a 2.4GHz network and offers to create a 5GHz secondary network, which is interesting."

That is very cool. I was thinking I'd have to tediously set up the 5GHz as my main, and reconfigure the 2.4 as a secondary, based on this:
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Designing_AirPort_Networks_Using_AirPort_Utility.pdf

But if it will do it for me, I'm in :D

[calvinki @ Feb 29th 2008 1:44PM]

Can you change the time interval between backups?

[Zak @ Feb 29th 2008 1:46PM]

Not by default, but you can if you really want to. See here:

http://brianpuccio.net/change_time_machine_backup_intervals

[Rob K @ Feb 29th 2008 1:45PM]

Is any sort of remote access allowed from outside of your network, like FTP access, or is access only available to computers within the network?

[CharlieX @ Feb 29th 2008 1:46PM]

Everyone knows heat is the nemesis of HDD's. That makes me a little worried... enterprise grade drives typically have more cooling because they're in servers and san environemnts

[h00rah @ Feb 29th 2008 1:56PM]

Actually, Google's hard drive study would seem to disagree slightly about the impact of heat on HDD life:

http://storagemojo.com/?p=378

"" One of the most intriguing findings is the relationship between drive temperature and drive mortality. The Google team took temperature readings from SMART records every few minutes for the nine-month period. As the figure here shows, failure rates do not increase when the average temperature increases. At very high temperatures there is a negative effect, but even that is slight. ""

[Rob @ Feb 29th 2008 2:11PM]

I agree. However, a lot of the drivers these days are coming in enclosures without any fans and they seem to behave quite well. I just bought a WD with the Green Power label on it and I had it on for about 24hrs and it never got hot at all, not even warm. I had it sitting outside the pc case because my plan was to save some data that I didn't need access to on a daily basis. WD claims that it's one of those flexible speeds of 5400-7200rpms. I think the latter is marketing bs. But never-the-less, the hdd stayed cool.

[Brentt @ Feb 29th 2008 2:12PM]

...that's what popped into my mind when i read this.

[GreezyG @ Feb 29th 2008 1:47PM]

If you can try accessing it from a windows machine. How well that works will be the deciding factor for me and my roomate getting one.

[Derek @ Feb 29th 2008 5:43PM]

If you have ever seen the file management of a Time Machine backup drive, it would really not be worth it.

[Ron @ Feb 29th 2008 1:50PM]

Why is you back-up file sooo huge? I mean a 500GB model would already be too small.
I still doubt between the 1TB and the 500GB version.

[Zak @ Feb 29th 2008 1:52PM]

My backup is about 450 GB total, it's not that unusual. You get whatever size Time Capsule fits your backup needs.

[Do I look indie yet? @ Feb 29th 2008 2:16PM]

You'll only be able to see it on windows if it's formatted under NTFS or FAT32. As far as I've seen, windows can't see HFS+. Leopard can only read NTFS by default and not write. FAT32 is fine, but if you really want, you can get full access to NTFS formatted stuff with this:
http://www.ntfs-3g.org/

[Wes @ Feb 29th 2008 10:51PM]

Actually over the my AEBS I have been using my AirDisk formated as HFS+ on Vista, XP and OSX.

[Iowaxproud @ Feb 29th 2008 1:56PM]

can you use an external hard drive through the USB not as a time machine device, bad as a storage device for the whole network?

[Zak @ Feb 29th 2008 2:12PM]

Time Capsule itself can be used as a network storage device, that why I say it's NAS. Time Machine uses it for backup but that's contained in a folder on the root level, you can use the drive for whatever else you want too. Here's more info:

http://www.apple.com/timecapsule/wireless.html

"And if you want to share both a printer and an additional hard drive, you can. Just connect a USB hub to Time Capsule. "

"Because it mounts as a wireless hard drive, Tiger and Windows users simply access Time Capsule directly from the wireless network for exchanging and storing files quickly and easily."

So yeah. It's a WAP/router, it's NAS, it's a wired/wireless network backup solution, it's a central print hub.

[Ken @ Feb 29th 2008 1:59PM]

Are you saying there are no slits, openings, or vents AT ALL on the time capsule??

[Raheem @ Feb 29th 2008 2:05PM]

I can run on Vista? :P

[Zak @ Feb 29th 2008 2:16PM]

As NAS, yes.

[Joe @ Feb 29th 2008 3:55PM]

i dont think vista gives enough energy to run on

[Tommy @ Feb 29th 2008 2:07PM]

what is the firmware? and ap disk utility version etc?

[Ozgur Ogut @ Feb 29th 2008 2:09PM]

I want to put my iTunes music folder on there and access it as a music server. Can I use the hard drive as a simple attached storage device, or is it dedicated only for time machine?

[Zak @ Feb 29th 2008 2:18PM]

Yes, you can use it as NAS and put your iTunes library on it. Although I don't think Time Machine will back that up (can't back up to itself?).

[Chuck @ Feb 29th 2008 2:25PM]

Wondering the same thing...

[blinkcowz182 @ Feb 29th 2008 2:37PM]

Yes to add to this, can I stream directly to the AppleTV from this or will I have to point my MacBook's iTunes library to Time Capsule and then stream from the Time Capsule to my MacBook and then to AppleTV?

[treetrunk @ Feb 29th 2008 2:12PM]

Does it work with an existing wireless network? My wireless router isn't located somewhere I'd put anything with a hard drive in it, so I'd like if time capsule could work as a bridge or client on my existing network (without using network cables or manually swapping between wireless ones).

[JamesR @ Feb 29th 2008 2:26PM]

Like your neighbors apartment? ;)

[Marshall @ Feb 29th 2008 2:13PM]

How configurable are the ethernet ports? I currently use Fon, and if possible, I would like to string my Fon AP off of this one to continue providing free wireless, but want to restrict the access from that port so people can't browse my network while still getting to the internet.

It might be too much to ask for this built-in and configurable with a single checkbox, but a man can always dream...

[Nate the Prophet @ Feb 29th 2008 2:14PM]

Here's what I'd like to know:

Can Time Capsule be used ONLY as a Time Machine backup? Basically, I'd like to have this double as a media storage drive for all my iTunes and iPhoto libraries and such--so that I can access my photos and music from either of my laptops over WiFi. If those files have to be part of the backup, that's fine. I'd just like to be able to access them from any computer in my house. Is this a possibility?

Also, how does it work backing up multiple computers?

[Zak @ Feb 29th 2008 2:20PM]

Time Capsule can be used as a standard NAS device in addition to being used as a Time Machine device. As far as multiple computers, on each computer you just set Time Machine up to back up to Time Capsule.

[Nate the Prophet @ Feb 29th 2008 3:48PM]

Sweet, thanks! I thought that would only make sense, but I wanted to be sure. That's actually the bigger draw for me (NAS) because I already have several externals that I back up to. But one device that can easily do both via WiFi--that's a good purchase.

Can you hook up additional drive(s) via USB to increase the storage?

[Zak @ Feb 29th 2008 4:10PM]

Yeah according to Apple you can plug a USB hub into it and plug in even more devices, including USB hard drives.