First Impressions: Apple Time Capsule
We just received our Apple Time Capsule this week, and it’s happily backing up my files right now. Time Capsule, in case you haven’t heard of it, is a WiFi hub that supports the new 802.1n standard and also contains a hard drive for backups using the Time Machine feature of OS X Leopard.
I purchased the 1 TB model, which costs $500. A 500GB model is available for a much more reasonable $300. I won’t be able to do a detailed review until a month or two has gone by, so I can try restoring some backups, but in the meantime here are some first impressions:
- It’s big. I imagined it being the size of a mac mini, but it’s actually wider, about 8″ square.
- Setting it up with the included software was very simple.
- There are very few settings—I can add drives or folders to a list of things not to back up, but that’s about it.
- Not surprisingly, backing up over the network is slow. My iMac, hooked directly to the Time Capsule with gigabit Ethernet, has managed to back up 223 GB in about 15 hours. Laura’s computer, hooked up to our old non-gigabit network, is taking much longer. I hesitate to imagine how long the first backup would take over WiFi.
- During at least the first backup, a little progress dialog pops up. This seems contrary to the “invisible” approach Apple otherwise takes with Time Machine. If the progress dialog pops up every hour while I’m working to do hourly backups, I’m going to be truly annoyed.
- Apple includes documentation for both Mac and Windows computers, but Windows simply sees the device as a network drive. If you’re strictly a Windows user, you could definitely beat the price by buying a separate WiFi hub and hard drive.
So far… so good. I’ll post further after I’ve had a catastrophe or two and seen whether Time Capsule saves me.
Tags: video game, gadgets, computers, cool gear
