We used the Apple AirPort Time Capsule for a number of years (and even plugged in an external USB drive when the internal drive failed), but it seems that this is the end of the road for Apple routers. We've also been replacing Intel x86 Macs with Apple Silicon varieties.
Old Setup:
2 ISPs => Peplink Balance 20 router => Apple AirPort Time Capsule (bridge mode) => Ethernet, WiFi, USB printer, USB hard drive
One of the issues with the last generation of AirPort Time Capsule is that it doesn't support 802.11ax "WiFi 6", but only 802.11ac "WiFi 5". We've been happy with Peplink as a company as they seem to support their hardware for many years longer than typical. In order to improve the reliability of residential internet, we subscribe to 2 Internet providers and the Peplink router does load balancing and automatic failover (you can actually unplug one of the Ethernet cables from one of the ISPs and everything still works seemlessly).
For the new setup, we are still using the Peplink Balance 20. We then added Peplink AP One AX Lite access points powered by TP-Link TL-SG1005P Ethernet switches.
2 ISPs => Peplink Balance 20 router => TP-Link TL-SG1005P => Peplink AP One AX Lite AP
So this replaces the WiFi functionality of the Time Capsule and integrates well with the Peplink router. You can use the Peplink web interface to update settings on the router and access points at the same time.
We still need a way to print over the network and also a way to do Time Machine backups. Though you can plug in a USB hard drive directly into the Mac that you want to backup, but it's better if the backup is physically separate from the Mac you are backing up.
Also, using the Time Capsule, we could only ever figure out how to print over the network from computers using MacOS. We couldn't print from iPhones or iPads and we couldn't print from computers running Linux or other operating systems.
Finally, we noticed that we couldn't use our scanner anyone once we updated to Apple Silicon. On Intel Macs, the Canon LiDE 110 just worked with the built-in software and drivers, but on M1 Macs, it just didn't work. Special Mention: VueScan supports older scanners natively on Apple Silicon Macs.
To solve all of these remaining issues with our home network, we turned to a 2009 iMac 24 Inch. As Apple has discontinued support for this machine, we first installed Ubuntu Linux. We attached the scanner, printer, and a few USB hard drives (and even a FireWire HDD) to the iMac.
The printer is a Samsung Xpress C410W (Samsung printer department now owned by HP). This has been a great color laser printer for us, but it does not support the latest printing protocols (no AirPrint). As an aside, this printer actually supported something called Google Cloud Print initially, but that service has entered the Google Graveyard.
Note for all WiFi-enabled printers: For some reason, most WiFi enabled printers create their own ad-hoc WiFi network which uses up one of the 3 (1, 6, 11) non-overlapping channels of 2.4 GHz WiFi. Make sure to disable this feature on the printer (if you can see something that looks like the name of your printer in your list of WiFi networks on your Mac, then your printer is not setup correctly).
We've got the Printer WiFi completely disabled and the printer Ethernet unplugged. We just have a single USB cable from the printer to the 2009 iMac. In order to get the printer to work under Ubuntu Linux, you have to download the driver from the HP website and install it (this is Intel CPU only, so it's compatible with the iMac).
Following this How-To article about setting up a printer for AirPrint on Ubuntu Linux, I'm now able to print from all devices that we have. The Macs, PCs running Linux, Chromebooks and PCs running Windows all use Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) and the iOS and IPadOS devices use AirPrint.
The scanner just works out of the box on Ubuntu Linux, but only locally. To scan over the network, install and configure AirSane. This is a solution that only works for MacOS. Using Image Capture.app on MacOS, I can scan from any of our Macs (both Intel and Apple Silicon).
There's another How-To article about how to setup disks as Time Machine backup disks. Now I can configure all of my Macs to backup over the network to disks attached to the iMac.
All-in-all, I'm pretty happy with this setup. The repurposed older iMac actually ends up providing more functionality than that Time Capsule and we can finally print to our network printer from any device we have.
The current setup:
2 ISPs => Peplink Balance 20 router => TP-Link TL-SG1005P
=> Peplink AP One AX Lite AP
=> iMac 2009
=> 3x USB HDD
=> 1x FireWire HDD
=> Samsung C410W printer
=> Canon LiDE 110 Scanner
Old Setup:
2 ISPs => Peplink Balance 20 router => Apple AirPort Time Capsule (bridge mode) => Ethernet, WiFi, USB printer, USB hard drive
One of the issues with the last generation of AirPort Time Capsule is that it doesn't support 802.11ax "WiFi 6", but only 802.11ac "WiFi 5". We've been happy with Peplink as a company as they seem to support their hardware for many years longer than typical. In order to improve the reliability of residential internet, we subscribe to 2 Internet providers and the Peplink router does load balancing and automatic failover (you can actually unplug one of the Ethernet cables from one of the ISPs and everything still works seemlessly).
For the new setup, we are still using the Peplink Balance 20. We then added Peplink AP One AX Lite access points powered by TP-Link TL-SG1005P Ethernet switches.
2 ISPs => Peplink Balance 20 router => TP-Link TL-SG1005P => Peplink AP One AX Lite AP
So this replaces the WiFi functionality of the Time Capsule and integrates well with the Peplink router. You can use the Peplink web interface to update settings on the router and access points at the same time.
We still need a way to print over the network and also a way to do Time Machine backups. Though you can plug in a USB hard drive directly into the Mac that you want to backup, but it's better if the backup is physically separate from the Mac you are backing up.
Also, using the Time Capsule, we could only ever figure out how to print over the network from computers using MacOS. We couldn't print from iPhones or iPads and we couldn't print from computers running Linux or other operating systems.
Finally, we noticed that we couldn't use our scanner anyone once we updated to Apple Silicon. On Intel Macs, the Canon LiDE 110 just worked with the built-in software and drivers, but on M1 Macs, it just didn't work. Special Mention: VueScan supports older scanners natively on Apple Silicon Macs.
To solve all of these remaining issues with our home network, we turned to a 2009 iMac 24 Inch. As Apple has discontinued support for this machine, we first installed Ubuntu Linux. We attached the scanner, printer, and a few USB hard drives (and even a FireWire HDD) to the iMac.
The printer is a Samsung Xpress C410W (Samsung printer department now owned by HP). This has been a great color laser printer for us, but it does not support the latest printing protocols (no AirPrint). As an aside, this printer actually supported something called Google Cloud Print initially, but that service has entered the Google Graveyard.
Note for all WiFi-enabled printers: For some reason, most WiFi enabled printers create their own ad-hoc WiFi network which uses up one of the 3 (1, 6, 11) non-overlapping channels of 2.4 GHz WiFi. Make sure to disable this feature on the printer (if you can see something that looks like the name of your printer in your list of WiFi networks on your Mac, then your printer is not setup correctly).
We've got the Printer WiFi completely disabled and the printer Ethernet unplugged. We just have a single USB cable from the printer to the 2009 iMac. In order to get the printer to work under Ubuntu Linux, you have to download the driver from the HP website and install it (this is Intel CPU only, so it's compatible with the iMac).
Following this How-To article about setting up a printer for AirPrint on Ubuntu Linux, I'm now able to print from all devices that we have. The Macs, PCs running Linux, Chromebooks and PCs running Windows all use Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) and the iOS and IPadOS devices use AirPrint.
The scanner just works out of the box on Ubuntu Linux, but only locally. To scan over the network, install and configure AirSane. This is a solution that only works for MacOS. Using Image Capture.app on MacOS, I can scan from any of our Macs (both Intel and Apple Silicon).
There's another How-To article about how to setup disks as Time Machine backup disks. Now I can configure all of my Macs to backup over the network to disks attached to the iMac.
All-in-all, I'm pretty happy with this setup. The repurposed older iMac actually ends up providing more functionality than that Time Capsule and we can finally print to our network printer from any device we have.
The current setup:
2 ISPs => Peplink Balance 20 router => TP-Link TL-SG1005P
=> Peplink AP One AX Lite AP
=> iMac 2009
=> 3x USB HDD
=> 1x FireWire HDD
=> Samsung C410W printer
=> Canon LiDE 110 Scanner
