What does an AirPort Time Capsule do?

[vmflapem]

I tried to do some research on my own but I find it quite confusing. I wanted to buy an airport time capsule to keep my files all backed up at all times. Apparently, this thing can also act as a router...? I already have an internet modem that also acts as a router. So would this function be completely irrelevant?

Can someone highlight some of the key features a time capsule can do? I have an imac, a macbook pro and an ipad, and I am wondering if time capsule can act as an external storage device where i can access files freely from all my devices?

 

[redheeler]

You can store and access files on it using the Macs, and back them up to it using Time Machine (hence the name Time Capsule). You can use it to extend your network range, or as a main WiFi router if your current one doesn't get good range or support 802.11ac.

 

[thats all folks]

It is a wireless router that has a hard drive in it. if you want to just do Time Machine, a basic external drive will do. If you want that drive to be wireless there are many options out there that work, some with more success than others. maybe someone here has actual experience to convey.

 

[roadkill401]

I do not know what sort of price you get for the units where you are from, but there are also other alternatives that you can consider as well.

Apple does a great job of putting something into a really beautiful case and then charging an arm and a leg for something no better than what is already out there. The only plus side to going with an Official APPLE time capsule is if Apple decided so change a spec for timemachine, then you hopefully will get a firmware flash to keep your box working.

But time machine is pretty standard now and there are multiple vendors of actual NAS drives that do just as good if not a better job than Apple does. I have a Synology NAS, but I know that Drobo and QNAP along with many others also offer support for network TimeMachine in their products.

Why go with someone else other than Apple. One point and it's a biggie. Single Point of Failure. These units have a single spinning hard drive inside and I know it is supposed to be just for backup, but in reality it becomes archival as well because timemachine can keep multiple versions of your data.

Most of my stuff on my iMac I really don't care about except one thing. Digital Photographs. With a real NAS you can have fault tolerance redundancy. Mirror drives or RAID solutions. Plus you now gain the added part that you were looking for in you can create network share drives that are easily accessible from all your mac's.

My Synology has a great feature called photocenter that keeps a fully searchable library of all my photographs and can even auto upload new pictures from my iPad and Andriod phone so that everything stays fully backed up. I don't need iCloud and it's not like that is even a option for my andoid phone.

I would look into going that route and buy yourself a longer term future

 

[Ray Brady]

The Time Capsule is great for backing up multiple computers, especially laptops that you don't feel like plugging in to backup drives on a regular basis. I have a Time Capsule serving as my primary Wi-Fi router, and at the same time acting as a Time Machine backup for both my wife's and my primary laptops. It essentially means we never have to give any thought to our backup procedures.