Time capsule

Hi, im new to mac's hopefully will recieve it tomorrow so thats how new i am, i haven't even got it yet lol. Anyway im interested in the time capsule for backing up everything and using to store music, photos etc on to save me having to plug in my WD external hard drive when i want to play or view something. Now im unsure how the time capsule actually works, my broadband supplier in sky and i have a netgear super wireless ADSL router DG834GT. Can i plug the time capsule into this router or will i need to buy the airport extreme for this to work?

Time Capsule is a router as well. There is no need to do two routers.

DaFlake said:

Time Capsule is a router as well. There is no need to do two routers.

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ah, so if i was to buy the timecapsule u wouldnt need to use the netgear one supplied from sky? thats cool

Yup!

wicked and this gives good reception around the house yeah? im really impressed with that, im having a good read around the forum and trying to pick stuff up before i get my macbook tomora hopefully. I really cannot wait to get it and say goodbye to windows for ever lol... and this forum seems a really cool and friendly place where im going to learn oa lot of valuable info

Have fun! That is what we are here for and will try to help when we can.

If you go the Time Capsule route there are a couple of options given that you already have a router. Depending upon your needs I am sure the members can advise about the best setup.
As far as I can see you could:

1. Have the Time Capsule replace your existing router. In this case the Time Capsule handles all routing functions.

2. Retain the existing router and turn off routing functions on the Time Capsule. I have this situation set up so that hard drives and printers attached to the Time Capsule can be shared to the entire network. This arrangement still allows use of the wireless capabilities in case you have some spots whew the existing router doesn't give good coverage.

This second arrangement is handy if you have older devices that require use of WEP encryption. If the other router supports WEP it can handle those devices while the TC handles others if necessary.

my gf uses a windows laptop, would she still be able to connect to the internet if i was to use the time capsule as the router aswell?

Yes, I have a PC connected to mine right now.

cool, think i might get one after xmas then next week

If you have ADSL router, then you have to be connected to internet via RJ11 cable,

not RJ45.


This means that you can't connect directly to your provider without the current (netgear) router. You have to plug in your time capsule to the netgear router and disable the DHCP service, you need to extend your current network.

One other thing you need to know about time capsule, if you need to do file sharing to windows 7 machines through samba, you must know that it doesn't play nice with that operating system. There was an update to 7.5.2 firmware recently, but this doesn't fix the issue completely.
Don't ask me how I know, just do a quick research on the net about it, there was a nice discussion on the official apple forums about this issue.
Don't expect a excellent coverage with this unit, of course it depends to what it's compared to, but just have one in mind especially on 5 Ghz.
If I compare the coverage and overall network capabilities to Linksys WRT54GL and WRT54GS that I have, the time capsule is far, far behind in almost every way.
If you just want to connect your computers to internet an do basic file sharing between Macs, then the time capsule is perfectly fine. Maybe there is one minor thing that's annoying me a little, when you connect to look for your files on the capsule, you have to wait for it to spin up every time. I don't like it because I had one computer before set up with linux samba file server and a wireless router and it was always fast, rock solid and responsive without any slowings.

I just looked up that router to be sure and the above post is correct. What you have is a combination modem/router and the TC is only a router. So, if you go the TC route, you will need a modem (device that translates ADSL to Ethernet). Sorry that I missed this on the first post and kudos to the above post.

so can you recommend me some thing thats maybe better than the time capsule that does the same job of wireless back up that i can use with time machine?

I was just inquiring about this in another thread, and there are 3rd party external HDD's that will work with Time Machine, from WD, Seagate and others.