Time Capsule question

I am brand new to Mac and I wondered if anyone had any opinions. A time capsule is very expensive and you can buy an external hard drive for less than a third. What are the advantages of the wifi time capsule - does anyone have an opinion that can help me make a decision? Many thanks

Unless you are also in the market for a router, I wouldn't suggest the TC.

I have a wifi, is that the same as a router? forgive my ignorance

Your wifi gizmo might or might not include basic router capabilities. Can you tell us what brand and model device you have?

I have a Synology NAS (supports Time Machine) on my router. Works great.

I have a netgear router, I have just discovered. But I think I have decided, for a first step, to get a portable 1 terabyte external hard drive. If, at a later stage, I need more than the normal back up system, I will then rethink about the wifi friendly time capsule... thank you for all your help everyone who answered.

Some routers permit you to attach a USB hard drive to the router and have it appear as a network drive in much the same way as the drive in the Time Capsule. Check the documentations to see if this is possible with your model as well as if there are any drive formatting/size limitations

thank you, i will