The Time Capsule reviews on Apple’s site are loaded with negativity regarding how long those drives last, or rather, don’t last. Do you see Time Capsules as flawed products? Are they more crash-prone than they should be?
— John Russell
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Time Capsule longevity
Comments: 10 Responses to “Time Capsule longevity”
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I don't really know. It does seem like there were a lot of reports of short-lived TC hard drives for a while. It sounds like a bad batch of drives to me, which could happen to any product that contains hard drives.
I don't think the idea because over-the-network backups are too slow for people that do video work. I prefer USB2 drives hooked directly to the Mac. But I can see the appeal of a network drive that can handle multiple Macs in a house, and MacBooks without a wired connection. Still might be worth it to have each Mac backup to its own USB2 drive, though.
What do others think?
I’ve only had mine since April 2009 and so far so good. Ask me in another year or two.
I think the home made Time Capsule is better. Buy an Airport Extreme and attach a USB hard-drive. Give me a FireWire port and you made my Apple. I think if (and when) the introduce a AE with a FireWire port, that will be their recognition of their failing TC product.
Chris Wanja
chris.wanja@mac.com
I have been using one at work since February and it works really well. I plan on getting one for my home soon.
Works terrible. Not sure it's software or hardware though. The worst experience with any Apple product so far. I went back to backup via USB because it worked so "great". (Stuck backups and so on) Just waiting for it to die as so many other people report.
A great idea really badly implemented.
I can't wait to get 2TB version for myself.
I've read all negative reviews but I trust the brand, cant imagine Apple making something really bad. Besides first of all its 3rd revision of Time Capsule now so if there were some issues with drives in first revision, it should be fixed by now. And second even if my time Capsule fails, I'm confident that Apple will repair it for free if its a known issue. Recently I got my 2 year old MacBook fixed at Apple Store for free. @hurk87
I bought one in Feb 2009 and a new one came out right after - the dual band. I send my old one back to Apple and got the new one for the cost of a restocking fee. So, I've set up two different Time Capsules. I really like mine. It backs up without me noticing and provided a great wifi for my iPhone and my wife's iPhone. It is a great product! I hear about all of these bad drives and am scared that mine won't last as long as I hope it does!
I love my Time Capsule.I have had it over a year. I just bought a new MacBook Pro and used it to restore all my data to it via my Time Capsule. Worked perfect. I do like the comment about adding a firewire port to a Airport Extreme.
I've had my 2TB Time Capsule for several months now and, to this point, it has performed flawlessly. We back up the four Macs in our home. We've had occasion to use it twice to recover accidentally deleted files. A life saver.
I'll have to reserve judgment for another year or two about it's longevity.
I've read all those bad reviews. Even listened to a couple Mac podcasts where the host doesn't sound thrilled with it.
I like Chris's idea of connecting a USB to the AE. That way, no matter who's drive goes bad, it's easy to replace.
But for me, I've only got one Mac and one iPhone, so I just use a WD MyBook to connect directly to the MacBook Pro. Two years later, it still works perfectly.
Love the idea of Firewire on the AE. I don't have one of those, either. Wasn't aware that AE didn't already support firewire. Maybe by the time I'm in the market for a new router AE will have that firewire connection.