So, how is Time Capsule different from an Airport Extreme + Drive?

I want to know if a), I can use it just as an NAS without it being a
router, and b) if I can use it as a shared volume, or is it only for
TM backups? Ideally, I want both - TM backups of home folders for 4
Macs here at home, but also a shared volume for exchanging files
between Macs when they are not on...

Kirk

On Jan 16, 2008 6:01 AM, RK <rayklossmac.com> wrote:
> I bought an Airport Extreme because I thought that I could attach a drive to it to do wireless backups. It seemed to work well, but now they have the Time Capsule that seems to do the same thing (maybe it's faster because it has an internal drive). I had heard problems with a wireless backup wiping out a backup once it became full, so I wasn't sure this was the way to go.
>
> So, should I still use my drive attached to my Airport Extreme? I back up 2 portables to it. It seems like the TC does that. I am wondering (with the 2 week release window) if we will see an OS update that will make this type of backup more simple.

Are you sure that the issue is that it wipes out the entire backup
once it becomes full, or that older backups are deleted automatically
once the drive becomes full? This is currently what is happening with
my drive. I need to buy another, much bigger one.

I don't have a wireless setup with my Airport Extreme because I was
told that it simply didn't work: You couldn't use a network drive. It
was one of the things I found surprising about Time Capsule: It is a
wireless network drive and it does work with Time Machine.

--
David Weintraub
qazwartgmail.com

David Weintraub wrote:
> On Jan 16, 2008 6:01 AM, RK <rayklossmac.com> wrote:
>> I bought an Airport Extreme because I thought that I could attach a drive to it to do wireless backups. It seemed to work well, but now they have the Time Capsule that seems to do the same thing (maybe it's faster because it has an internal drive). I had heard problems with a wireless backup wiping out a backup once it became full, so I wasn't sure this was the way to go.
>>
>> So, should I still use my drive attached to my Airport Extreme? I back up 2 portables to it. It seems like the TC does that. I am wondering (with the 2 week release window) if we will see an OS update that will make this type of backup more simple.
>
> Are you sure that the issue is that it wipes out the entire backup
> once it becomes full, or that older backups are deleted automatically
> once the drive becomes full? This is currently what is happening with
> my drive. I need to buy another, much bigger one.
>
> I don't have a wireless setup with my Airport Extreme because I was
> told that it simply didn't work: You couldn't use a network drive. It
> was one of the things I found surprising about Time Capsule: It is a
> wireless network drive and it does work with Time Machine.

People keep saying that, but I use a drive physically connected by
Firewire to my wife's iMac to Time Machine both the iMac and our two
Powerbooks. The Powerbooks back up over our wireless network. All I
had to do to get the process started was to mount the backup drive
(cleverly named "Backup") on the Powerbooks, and then designate Backup
as the Time Machine drive. From then on, whether or not the drive
remains mounted, the Time Machine backup happens automatically; the
sparse disk images on Backup that the Powerbooks actually use
automatically mount and dismount as needed. So three machines can back
up to the same physical drive without stepping on each other. And since
it uses sparse disk images, my guess is that it would work on drives
physically connected to machines running something other that OS X, so
long as they could be remote mounted somehow, although I no longer have
a Linux machine in the house to test that.

I've used Time Machine to restore a file or two to my Powerbook over the
network, so in normal operation, things seem to work as expected. But
since the Airport support on the Leopard install disk seems to be
chimerical, I worry about what happens when times aren't normal. Can I
plug Backup into one of the two Powerbooks and somehow get it to work
well enough to do a major restore? When I upgraded the file system on
my Powerbook G4 to HFS+ case sensitive, I first did a complete Time
Machine back up to a spare drive connected by Firewire to save time.
After wiping and reformatting the drive, simply doing a complete restore
via Time Machine resulted in a complete mess, causing kernel panics upon
reboot, because it seemed to try to revert the file system to case
insensitive. I had to reinstall Leopard and then use the Migration
Assistant to restore files from the Time Machine backup on the
physically connected drive. I wonder if Apple has solved the "what to
do after a catastrophe" with Time Capsule?

--
Paul Schinder
schinderpobox.com

On Jan 17, 2008 6:55 AM, Kirk McElhearn <kirkmcelhearn.com> wrote:
> I want to know if a), I can use it just as an NAS without it being a
> router, and b) if I can use it as a shared volume, or is it only for
> TM backups? Ideally, I want both - TM backups of home folders for 4
> Macs here at home, but also a shared volume for exchanging files
> between Macs when they are not on...

According to the Apple Store page for Time Capsule, it can work as a disk:

"Time Capsule also works great as a wireless hard drive whether you
have a Mac or PC. It sets up in a snap, giving you a networked hard
drive you can use for storing and sharing any kinds of files."

Also it has the following text under "Wi-Fi":

"Time Capsule with Time Machine in Leopard is the ideal backup
solution. But that doesn't mean Tiger, Windows XP, and Windows Vista
users can't enjoy the benefits of Time Capsule, too. Because it mounts
as a wireless hard drive, Tiger and Windows users simply access Time
Capsule directly from the wireless network for exchanging and storing
files quickly and easily."

This reminds me of the promises that Airport Extreme disks could be
used as Time Machine backup drives, only to have it removed from the
Leopard Features page at the last minute. I wonder if they're nerfing
Time Capsule.

--Nik

On Jan 17, 2008, at 4:46 PM, Nik Friedman TeBockhorst wrote:

> This reminds me of the promises that Airport Extreme disks could be
> used as Time Machine backup drives, only to have it removed from the
> Leopard Features page at the last minute. I wonder if they're nerfing
> Time Capsule.

Does the page say "Features subject to change?" (The Leopard/Time
Machine pages did.)

   --John

On 17-Jan-08 17:46, "Paul Schinder" <schinderpobox.com> wrote:
> David Weintraub wrote:
>> On Jan 16, 2008 6:01 AM, RK <rayklossmac.com> wrote:
>>> I bought an Airport Extreme because I thought that I could attach a drive to
>>> it to do wireless backups.

>> I don't have a wireless setup with my Airport Extreme because I was
>> told that it simply didn't work:
>
> People keep saying that, but I use a drive physically connected by
> Firewire to my wife's iMac to Time Machine both the iMac and our two
> Powerbooks.

Right. THAT works. Connecting a large drive to the old (well,, more than a
week old at least) Airport Express and trying to backup to IT did not work.

On Jan 17, 2008, at 19:46, Paul Schinder wrote:

> People keep saying that, but I use a drive physically connected by
> Firewire to my wife's iMac to Time Machine both the iMac and our two
> Powerbooks.

TM works perfectly via wireless to a drive connected to another
Leopard machine. It does not work (currently) to a drive connected to
an Airport. This is the feature that was pulled at the last minute I
believe . . . some sort of issue.

Since the Time Capsule is essentially an Airport with an internal
drive . . . hopefully that means that whatever the issue was is
fixed . . . and that we'll see an Airport firmware update along with a
Leopard update to reenable this feature.

Looking over the specs on Apple's site and reading various articles, it seems that Time Machine backups are only done over wireless. Is this really the case? If I have one Mac plugged into a LAN port and another Mac connected wirelessly I would have hoped that the first would use ethernet and the second would, obviously, use wireless. But as far as I can tell both would need to use wireless. This doesn't really make any sense to me though, I can't think of a reasonable explanation for requiring wireless. The only ray of sunshine I can see is that on the Time Capsule Tech Spec page is the list of System Requirements that state that only Leopard is required for Time Machine backups. 

"lewisGmail" wrote:
> On 17-Jan-08 17:46, "Paul Schinder" <schinderpobox.com> wrote:
>> David Weintraub wrote:
>>> On Jan 16, 2008 6:01 AM, RK <rayklossmac.com> wrote:
>>>> I bought an Airport Extreme because I thought that I could attach a drive to
>>>> it to do wireless backups.
>
>>> I don't have a wireless setup with my Airport Extreme because I was
>>> told that it simply didn't work:
>> People keep saying that, but I use a drive physically connected by
>> Firewire to my wife's iMac to Time Machine both the iMac and our two
>> Powerbooks.
>
> Right. THAT works. Connecting a large drive to the old (well,, more than a
> week old at least) Airport Express and trying to backup to IT did not work.

I wonder what the difference is. Isn't the drive on an Extreme just another AFP mount point on the client machine? How does Time Machine know the difference between a disk attached to an Extreme and a disk attached to a computer?

--
Paul Schinder
schinderpobox.com

On 18-Jan-08 18:17, "Paul Schinder" <schinderpobox.com> wrote:

> Or do you mean an Extreme?

Yes, We were talking about the Extreme.
> In that case, I wonder what the difference
> is. Isn't the drive on an Extreme just another AFP mount point on the
> client machine? How does Time Machine know the difference between a
> disk attached to an Extreme and a disk attached to a computer?

I don't claim to know WHY it doesn't work, only that it does not, in fact,
work.

I am sorely tempted to get that 1TB TimeCapsule since I also want an Airport
Extreme, I just need to know how I can get it to play nicely with my cable
modem (which is a router as well) so I don't end up with the dreaded double
NAT.

One difference (assuming both could be used as NAS and TM backup) is that the Airport Extreme + Drive will allow for an easy way to exchange the drive. This is especially important if you want to have an off-site backup (just to make sure that you don't lose any of your priceless data if someone steals your Mac AND your backup disk, your house burns down, or some other disaster hits that completely destroys the location you have your Mac).

My current backup strategie is to backup (daily) to an external (FireWire/USB) drive (directly connected to my iMac) and exchange that drive on a semi-regular interval (about once a month, but more often when one of us think it to be neccesary) with a similar drive my brother has (he lives a few miles away, hopefully far away enough) which he uses for his backups. This way my brother and I keep each others backups safe and off-site.

The same strategy with two Time Capsules (considering it is also a router with it's network settings) could be quite a challenge and certainly not as easy, I think. I hope Apple fixes the problem that prevents the Airport Extreme to be used as a backup device with attached USB disks.

<Airport Extreme, I just need to know how I can get it to play nicely <with my cable modem (which is a router as well) so I don't end up with <the dreaded double NAT.

My system uses a Verizon Modem/Router (ActionTec) that has to stay in play for FIOS On Demand services. To install AEB in that environment requires you to do a manual install of the AEB and turn off DHCP and NAT which automatically forces the AEB into Bridge mode. No double NAT issue in that config.

When I first got FIOS, I left our cable TV on Comcast. I tossed the original DLink Router from Verizon and put my Linksys WRT54G back in place. A couple of months later, I put in FIOS cable and they brought in the ActionTec Router so they could talk to the STBs via IP.

Not only is the ActionTec a proprietary router for Verizon with who-knows-what watching my packets, it had horrible prop delay on pings.

So I set out to put my Linksys back at the top of the food chain. Verizon 2nd level tech support wasn't very helpful, but eventually I sorted it out.

The Linksys is connected to FIOS and the Actiontec is downstream from it. However, the connection from the Actiontec to the FIOS is from LAN to LAN, i.e. the Action WAN port doesn't connect to the Linksys.

If anyone is interested I can drag out the configuration info for both, the physical connections and post them.

There is a very straight forward reason why AP + HDD does not work and Time Capsule does. For a hard drive to be recognized by the Airport, you must format the drive "UNJOURNALED" - one of the format options in disk manager. BUT, Time Machine can only use a journaled disk as a destination drive.

So... the AirPort requires unjournaled, while Time Machine requires journaling. So - the solution for Apple, rather then fix the Airport, introduce the Time Capsule.

I say... buy a Drobo, much better way to go.