Apple Time Capsule MB276LL/A (AirPort Extreme Plus 500 GB Storage)
by Apple Computer
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Apple Time Capsule MB276LL/A (AirPort Extreme Plus 500 GB Storage)
Customer Review: Finally - Time Capsule has arrived (albeit a little late)
Summary: 4 Stars
Since its introduction in January, Mac users (new and old) have been waiting patiently for Time Capsules (TC) to start appearing in retail stores. For me - I got lucky and wandered into the Apple Store on Friday to find that they had actually materialized earlier in the day.
Getting the product installed into my home network was a little more difficult than I expected, but not terribly so. For me - the hang up was that I was not going to use the Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS) to share out my Internet connection. My goal was simply to turn this device into another client on my Cat6 home network. After installing the AirPort utility provided with the packaging onto my MacBook Pro, configuring Time Capsule to recognize itself as a NAS only device was fairly straightforward. For at least the beginning, I disabled the wireless radio and plugged it in via one of its 4 available Cat6 connections. Opening config stuff was fairly standard: 1) give the device a name, decide on DHCP or manual IP config, etc. The only slightly annoying thing is that the Airport Utility does like to reset/reboot the Time Capsule after you make almost any type of change to the configuration. Mine must have rebooted 8 times before I had made the last of my changes.
As far as the integration with Time Machine, it was very intuitive and straight forward. The only curious thing is that it will not let me change my TM preferences unless my laptop was plugged in. Strangely, I could perform an instant backup with the laptop running on battery power. As many people have wondered, you can attach another USB-based hard-drive to the TC and use that drive(s) as the source of the TM backups if you like. Doing so would essentially make the entire size of TC available as traditional NAS Storage. Plugged in via my Ethernet connection, the initial TM backup of my 160GG (40 GB used) hard-drive took about 2.5 hours. I assume the speed would be significantly reduced if I was using the wireless. It looks as though Apple creates a sparse disk image bundle on the Time Capsule and then mounts that during a TM operation. This essentially leaves one file on the root of the hard drive after the initial backup is performed. You can mount this image at any time, and you will observe a folder structure similar to when Time Machine is operating against a locally attached USB hard drive.
Next the Wireless: After getting TM working to my satisfaction, I wanted to see if I set up another wireless network in my house. As with other AEBS units, this was very simple to do. I simply chose to put my TC into "Bridge Mode" and away I was. With 2 minutes I had a second wireless network up and running. For curiosity sake I setup the network to operate on the 5G Hz 802.11n configuration. I was curious to see how much faster the speed was than if I configured it to be backward compatible with 802.11a/b/g. Not surprisingly, performance on the "N" network was much better. I achieved average file transfers of almost twice the speed as I would have seen if I had been connected to my 802.11g network. Once I unplugged the Ethernet cable and went totally wireless, my Time Machine backups were very seamless and after a few hours of work, I stopped noticing the backups actually taking place.
Aesthetics: Like the AppleTV, the Time Capsule device does get fairly hot to the touch. From a size comparison, it is a little bit bigger (height-wise) than the AppleTV. It does not however have the smooth edges that the AppleTV sports. For some reason, its exterior design is more reminiscent of the last generation of AEBS.
Overall, Time Capsule is a great consumer device; but I have to believe that many power Mac users would cite SuperDuper's (http://www.shirt-pocket.com) ability to perform backups to image files stored on a network share as a comparable feature set in a backup solution. Interestingly, I am using both backup strategies: Time Machine & Time Capsule to protect the incremental versions of my everyday files and SuperDuper to generate a weekly backup image of my entire hard drive. My last comment would be this: a 500GB TC unit should be more than sufficient to take care of any single MacBook or MacBook Pro archiving strategy. If however you are looking to service multiple Macs or work with large amounts of video across the network, then the 1TB version will definitely be the way to go. Enjoy!
Customer Review: FAST, helpful, but not as robust in configuration.
Summary: 4 Stars
Let it be know that yes, I am a snobby Apple user. I am very demanding that my environment be very intuitive but also lets me tweak it at a low level. This router does NOT do that.
The good points of this are obviously the automated backups built into an airport extreme. If you do the math you also find you are getting quite a good deal, as an Airport Extreme router and external HD will run you a bit more than this configuration will. Yes, it does have a deathstar---wait I mean--- Deskstar HD running in it, but the issues surrounding those HD's are pretty much gone. The HD is solid. The value here is an intrinsic one too, it's a less complicated setup.
The backup system is a little quirky because it's not a direct connection to your system but rather a network. This means if you do things like restart, sleep, etc in the middle of a backup it considers this a failed backup and skips until the next designated time (1hr). The initial backup will take forever, this being a network connection you only have so much bandwidth, even with a gigabit network (which is what I have). All the systems in the house (4 clients) took about 12 hours to get the initial done. Subsequently, however, you won't notice the bandwidth getting used. If you're on a wireless, make sure you have an 802.11n device if you're doing backups, it's going to be horrid otherwise. With 4 clients and being post-initial backup I've not noticed a network slowdown or a problem. I try to keep the intervals different for each client so we're not trying to backup more than one system at a time.
The configuration of these routers, however, is a bit strange if you've experienced many other configs. These routers don't configure via a web interface, there's a dedicated client. This brings up a few oddities, because the advanced menus aren't really as intuitive as other routers I've configured in the past. Things like blocking a particular domain aren't even possible (!?!?). Traffic filtering will be odd. The other weird aspect is that I just use plain MAC address filtering to keep people off my network. If they can get past that, they can get past the WAP/2 encryption as well.
The router's speed and stability, however, are unparalleled. Whatever I throw at this router it just stands there and takes it. I somehow suspect its even asking for more, and without a much larger network I don't know what to give it. I have a 16mbps internet connection at home with 1mbps upstream and I have hosted some gargantuan games online, all the while I'll also have my desktop system streaming an HD movie file to the PS3 on another TV while another system is probably doing its backup, I notice no slowdown. This router handles heavy load and it does it like a champ. Other routers have faltered and stuck or reset themselves by this point but this thing just smiles and chugs on through. The only wireless clients is the laptop, the rest can be doing all kinds of heavy loads maxing out their bandwidth to the router and it manages all the traffic just fine. I could not be more impressed.
In short, great router, great backup system, but could use a hand in robust configurability. Otherwise I'd have no complaints whatsoever. If you balk at the price at all, remember, you get what you pay for. If you get this router/backup system it will give you peace of mind and a rock solid router. You can find other rigs, but they won't offer what this does. I guess Ferris Bueller put it succinctly, if you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.
Customer Review: Stop searching. 100% satisfaction guaranted
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't know why some people says this router is difficult to install, or config, or use.
I bought it, unpack it, powered it and voila, it works!!
Of course, my network isn't a "standard" one so I had to personalize the default config to match my needs. (the supposedly hard part)
Personalization couldn't be more easy: open Airport utility and choose one of two flavors: Automatic (via an easy wizard) or manual. I think most of you will choose Automatic for easy, but Manual configuration is not hard at all neither. All it's self explanatory except 1 or 2 new concepts introduced, like expand the wireless network by 3 different ways...
The only maybe annoy someone is this router works very, very hot. But that is advertised in user manual and I personally read it in many websites. To avoid any damage to the surface this hot may cause and wireless antenna insulation (I think) all the bottom is rubberized so don't worry about the hot, in the time you put the router in a good high, forgotten but centralized spot.
I own a D-Link wireless router too (I luv this one) and I have to admit coverage with TC is a lot better and consistent. I was afraid coverage would be bad because TC has no external antenna, but "uncle Steve" had managed for this don't occur. Nevertheless I expanded my wifi area even more connecting the 2 routers via wire (the D-Link have not the "expand wireless" option or WDS) and works great, now I have FULL coverage in all spots of my house (so many thick walls).
The "Time Machine" part of TC works flawlessly with my MacBook Pro and with my G5 PPC 1.8 too. Time Machine is really nice indeed but I think it need let people tweak more things "manually" like other apps does (i.e. maximum backup size, hourly, daily, both, restore (or move) a Time Machine backup from your old TM disk to TC so you can still use it).
In Windows Vista works great the wireless disk part. The backup part does not with standard windows backup procedures. Sadly this is Microsoft related and you have to buy another backup solution if you want to use TC full options. For Windows XP it works as advertised as I read in many forums (I cannot say it for sure because I own Vista, not XP)
Obviously, you have first to install the AirPort utility (from the companion CD supplied with TC) to configure all stuff in Windows. This part maybe annoy (too) some people because is not the "normal" web config procedure of many routers out there, but trust me, it is a lot easier and "secure" because if you don't have this utility you can't mess with the router (wifi steal). This software adds support for Bonjour so you can "mount" automatically the wifi disk as a remote disk and for use any printer you plugged in TC (or another disk?)
One word of caution: my experience with TC was and still is wonderful because I used to stay up to date with my OSes. What I mean is that I own Leopard with last update, TC with the last firmware update and Windows Vista with the last-non-SP1 update. I have to make you aware of this information because I read so many threads in a lot of forums regarding TC don't work and that happens because people are not up to date with their OSes or with TC firmware. Remember Apple works in hot, they are innovating all the time, and this, unfortunately, leads to some mistakes. Gladly they correct those errors as fast they provoke them...
Please, forgive my bad english... I wish this may help you...
Customer Review: false Apple advertising
Summary: 2 Stars
First, let me say that I've been using Apple products for more than 15 years, all as a professional graphics designer. No fun and games, just serious work. I know my way around the Mac OS. With all my years of experience, however, I was stumped with TC, and am now very disappointed that I bought it.
My most important complaint is that it DOES NOT work entirely as advertised. According to Apple, you can use it as a base station/backup drive, or as a client to an established wireless network, or just hardwired directly to your computer. I intended to use option #2: as a client to my established network. Why? Because I'm happy with the wireless service I have, I wanted to create a network and back up more than one computer to the TC, and I wanted to plug it into a power strip with my main computer and turn it off at the end of the day.
This option was discussed on the Apple Web site, and it is also fully described in the TC owners manual (pages 17 to 19); there's even a diagram illustrating how to do this.
However, when I tried doing it, it would not work. The procedure even kept knocking out my established network. (I had to keep unplugging my modem and router to get them to reboot.)
I called Apple, waited close to half an hour on the phone, and was finally helped. The tech agent, who was very friendly, helped me configure TC to act as a base station/backup drive. It worked, I was happy, and hung up the phone. I then realized that this was exactly what I DID NOT want to do with it.
I called again, waited another half hour, and was helped by a tech who was far from friendly and was not very communicative. (The Apple techs are usually very friendly and helpful.) I told him the problem, and he informed me that Apple was no longer supporting TC if it is used as a client to an established network. I told him that this is how it was advertised and even described in the owners manual. He said that he was aware of all this. When I asked why here was this change, he just grunted that "there might be 'issues.'" So, he helped me configure it as a simple hard drive to my main computer. What a waste of $300!
Anyway, TC stopped working, I called again, waited another half hour, got another friendly tech, who this time passed me on to the TC expert tech. He confirmed that Apple had indeed changed it's mind about how to configure TC. He did solve my problem and it's now working fine. It's wired directly to my main office computer, so the other computers are not networked to the TC. I'm pretty sure I could have done this with a less expensive backup drive, and certainly not wasted hours getting it to work and on the phone with Apple tech people.
Chalk TC up with the intro of OS 10.5, which was also pretty much of a flop. I'm now in the camp with many other longtime Mac users who believe Apple is more interested in selling phones, televisions, and iTunes than in designing top-flight computer gear.
Customer Review: Excellent Wireless Router/Hard Drive
Summary: 4 Stars
I have a tendency to read a lot of reviews before I buy a product, but don't generally write them. In this case however, some of the negative reviews on the TC are just killing me so I felt obligated to give you my experience. I had a basic Belkin router for about 3 years and if finally failed, and I have a 300g Maxtor Drive that works excellent but I always have to plug into the USB to back up files. I saw the Time Capsule and thought what a great solution to network the 3 laptops in the house and share my 15,000+ pictures/videos and other files. I also bought the latest new Macbook Pro a few months ago.
When I opened the Time Capsule box I was impressed by the small size and no antennas on it, nice clean seek look like most Apple products. I read the instructions before plugging in the TC, unlike most people, which is why many of them are probably having difficulties.
I have Cable with Comcast so I first hooked up the Ethernet cable to the Ethernet WAN Port on the TC.
I then plugged the TC in and opened up the Airport Utility on my MBP. It simply recognized the TC and I followed the easy setup instructions. Within 10 minutes I was up and running and dragging an dropping files from my MBP to the TC wireless and flawless, just as I hoped to do. I moved about 10G to start and it was smooth. Later that night I decided to move over I a very large chunk of files about 200G. To speed up the process I connected a cable directly to one of Ethernet ports on the TC to my MBP Ethernet port and turned off the wireless Airport. It transferred the data flawlessly again. I was very impressed.
Now here comes the challenge I thought, hooking up my PC laptops to the network. Will they see the TC? (Common complaint in many reviews.)
The directions say to install the CD that came with the TC.
I simply installed it to my HP DV1000 laptop and my wife's HP DV5000 laptop. The CD automatically installed the Airport Utility. I simply went to My Computer after the installation and there it was a new drive.... Drive (Z): Time Capsule under the Network Drives. I clicked on the TC icon it asked for my network password and there you go I could access all the files, read & write, drag and drop... It was that simple.
Only one problem, the problem was when I went to hook up my 300G Maxtor drive to the USB in the back of the TC. The airport utility recognized the drive but I could not access it. The Apple tech support said it needs to be a FAT32 and my Maxtor is formatted in NTFS. I have not reformatted the Maxtor drive yet but I probably will to utilize the drive on the network.
Feel comfortable purchasing the TC if you want a wireless router and network drive combination that you can share files between Macbook Pro and PC's to Time Capsule.
It works excellent.