Is an Airport Time Capsule suitable?

[ng7apoc]

Hi everyone

Currently I have a 2011 Mac Mini and am looking at getting a 2017 MacBook Pro to replace it, relegating the Mini to use as file/print server.

So what I want to do is get an Airport Time Capsule 2/3TB to backup both machines with, however I don't want to use the Airport network extension, nor do I want to plug it into either machine via ethernet.

I simply want to have it in a different room to either machine, and have it join my existing network over wifi and backup over that.

Is this possible or should I be looking at another solution.

Thanks

 

[Significant1]

I would like to know that too. I think it is possible, but only on initial setup. Mine is currently wired to my router and I cannot change it like you want. But I think, if I do a reset. It will be possible. Unfortunately I don't have time to play with right now.

 

[Fishrrman]

I wouldn't recommend a Time Capsule today. The hardware is getting old and out-of-date.

Do you already have equipment for wireless (Apple's or 3rd-party)?

If so, I'd save money and do it the old-fashioned way.
Get a hard drive of sufficient capacity, and just "connect/disconnect" to both Macs when it's time to back up.

If the Mini is going to be used as only a file/print server, it probably won't need much "backing up" anyway. Once or twice a week ought to do fine.

 

[Significant1]

If the Mini is already going to be fileserver, why not place timemachine backups on a harddrive in or directly attached to it?

 

[ng7apoc]

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay in responding. Reason for not wanting to use the Mac Mini is the internal drive(s) won't have sufficient space and the 2011 Mini only has USB2.0 ports that are brutally slow for file transfer.

I already have an SSD in an external USB3 enclosure that I will be using with SuperDuper! once a week to have a bootable clone, hence not wanting to plug a second external device directly to a portable machine.

Seems the Airport Time Capsule has some usage quirks and limitations, but sadly so do most other solutions.

I won't be buying my MB or MBP for at least a month so I still have some time to research and find out what is going to suit my setup best.

Appreciate the input and I will update this at some point with what I settled on in case it helps others in a similar position

Thanks again.

 

[Significant1]

Even though gigabit ethernet will do well above 100MB/s, the disk controller inside timecapsule cannot do more than 50MB/s. USB2 is around 25-30MB/S

But my experience is that timemachine copy process is slower than that. Likely because it is many small file-operations.

Timecapsule also has an USB2 port. Sometimes I connect an additional disk, but they newer power down when idle, so I only do that when needed.

For my need timecapsule is still good enough, and I would buy a new, if mine breaks down. My only beef, is the noise a spinning disk make.

 

[ng7apoc]

Hi,

Quick update for those that may be helped by this. I realised I was completely overthinking this and just bought a WD My Cloud and a cheap wifi extender, using it as an ethernet bridge and ignoring its wifi features.

So its in the hallway no cables from router and no cables to Mac Both combined cost just over £150 almost half the price of the Airport Time Capsule

 

[Mobster1983]

I would stay away from the Time Capsule. I purchased one shortly before Apple said they would no longer support it. My TC works ok, but has given me a lot of issues. Wifi drops out fairly often (really annoying) and while Time Maching worked well, I had trouble doing anything else with the drive.

 

[Significant1]

I would stay away from the Time Capsule. I purchased one shortly before Apple said they would no longer support it. My TC works ok, but has given me a lot of issues. Wifi drops out fairly often (really annoying) and while Time Maching worked well, I had trouble doing anything else with the drive.

Not something I can recognize. Mine has been dead stabile. I have the older flat model. What do you mean with trouble doing anything else with the drive?

My niggles with Time Capsule is, no web-interface. Needs to reboot after even the most minor setup changes. A spinning disk in genereal is noisy. The built in disk controller is underpowered and the bottleneck for storage operations, resulting in transferspeeds well below what the network-connection and/or disk drive should be capable of.

 

[sboychuck]

I agree about Time Capsules being problematic. They last a couple of years and then the hard drive fails. I have put new hard drives in them and I just got tired of it. WiFi can get sketchy after a few years to.

I bought these for my MAC's x 5 (family, mom and sister) and used some 4TB 3.5" drives I had at the house. Three computers have 3TB Fusions in them. I run Time Machine on them, and all is well. They even have a card reader and room for a jump drive to extend its use. I also have an extra drive that I put in a couple times a month and run Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC), so if my hard drive inside the MAC fails, I have a bootable drive. You can also take the CCC drive off-site for a safer back-up, just in case.

This system works for me, and has not failed me yet. Very dependable and redundant.

I also have FIOS for my Internet, and use their Motorola wireless router as well. Not the most robust router, but it works and I have no problems with it.

Thanks...