Time Capsule first impressions
By Nilay Patel 
posted February 29th 2008 1:28PM
posted February 29th 2008 1:28PM
- 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?
What I want to know is how to connect Time Capsule and my G Router together to my cable 10MB modem so that I can have two networks in the house, one for g devices, and one for n devices, without compromising data speeds. Anyone know how? I've read something on TUAW about patch cables, but I am not sure what that is. I've got the 1TB Time Capsule on the way.
I will be doing the same thing. I currently have a Linksys WRT54g. I'm just going to put the TC infront of the Linksys router and turn off DHCP on the Linksys. Then run a CAT5 cable from a LAN port on the Linksys to a LAN port on the TC. Let the TC handle all DHCP addressing and connect my NAS to the TC instead of Linksys so I can take advantage of the Gigabit NIC in the NAS.
@Matt:
What does turning off DHCP on the Linksys do? Can you still connect to it with devices and access the net? I have a Netgear g+ router.
What they mean by turning of DHCP, you want to bridge one of the networks. You should be able to bridge either router.
You never want 2 DHCP servers on the same subnet/network, so turning off the Linksys DHCP server will avoid a number of problems that can occur. Any devices connected to the Linksys will still get an IP from the TC router. You are bridging the Linksys to the TC and basically turning the Linksys into a switch.
Michael,
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/Designing_AirPort_Networks_Using_AirPort_Utility.pdf
Check out the chapter on setting up a dual band network.
It looks like based on Gizmodo's screen shots that this is actually automated by the Time Capsule Setup, which will be very sweet.
I have a Question. Since you can back up through time machine through Wifi. Does that mean with the Extra Space on say a 500g time capsule, can you access say your movies and music through the wifi or ethernet? I mean you aren't going to need 500g for only a 160 macbook pro drive? I"m just wondering if anyone could answer this.
thanks
are you sure existing TM backup can't be copied to TC and then be used as the base of following backups? that's annoying.
did you try to copy your existing TM backup (the "backupdb" folder or the sparse bundle, depending on how you backed up) to TC and point your macs to it?
are you sure existing TM backup can't be copied to TC and then be used as the base of following backups? that's annoying.
did you try to copy your existing TM backup (the "backupdb" folder or the sparse bundle, depending on how you backed up) to TC and point your macs to it?
Is the annoying 2GB Windows file limit gone? I really hope so. Otherwise it is not useable for a mixed network.
thats a lot of pr0n Nilay :P
A lot of good questions asked - all that I thought of and many more. Any answers yet?
Just set mine up...have it backing up my MBP and I also set it up for my Vista home PC...the best part is being able to stick something on there in windows and immediately pull it up on the MBP in another room...which is sweet for me because my wife and I have had trouble keeping all our files in one place...
It does run hot though...about the same temp as the bottom of the MBP...and it seems the apple logo is pat of the heat dispersion process cause that sucker is smoking hot...
Can anyone install Linux on it instead of the os it has?
Even better can it double boot?
If you can put Linux on it you could also put a BT client, ed2k Client, G1+G2 client, IRC+dcc client and Apache.
Cand anyone try this?
Please!
I hoped Apple will make it nearly silent like most of their hardware, but from the description, it seems no better than LaCie BigDisk (which I've got recently and I'm happy with).
Just want to clarify:
You CAN NOT use this as a media server to a ps3 or appletv ????? only for a laptop or desktop
that was my biggest hope....putting all of our video and music on this as a hub for all our devices.
and can I still use my airport express to extend range of the wifi network?
I think it's possible to copy the current Time Machine backup to TM Capsule because I did this with SuperDuper 2.5 to exchange my external TM backup disk. I copied the TM backup to a network drive too with the new SuperDuper version.
I am paranoid and do not find one backup to be a good solution.
Can you:
(1) Have time machine backup to two disks. I would like to backup my laptop to a local time capsule, and over the network to an off-site server (which I am doing currently). I guess one could use time capsule and rsync the timecapsule to the remote sever.
(2) Add another 1 GB usb disk to the Time Capsule and automatically mirror the internal one. Like the software raid option on the computers themselves. Again rsync could do this, but then you would have to move everything via wireless between the two attached drives, which seems kinda stupid.
Ideally I would like to combine all of these. Since time machine came out, I have already had my MacBook Pro drive and external 1 TB drive die within two days, but I had once other external drive as a backup. With so much digital stuff we keep accumulating, I don't feel comfortable with less than 3 drives, preferable 4, in two different physical locations.
Can you access it over the internet without a server?
I'd like to mirror the TC to an off-site service, like Amazon S3/JungleDisk:
- is it possible to ssh into the TC?
- How do the drives appear to a connected mac?
I ask the above, as I'd like to just run rsync in a cron job. Anyone?
Can you access the hard drive as a 500 or 1 TB network drive on the desktop? Thank you.
I already have a Linksys router, and my Mac is connected to it wirelessly. Can I use the Time Capsule wirelessly *without* connecting it to the internet? And will it interfere with my Linksys router?