Why do I have to buy a Time Capsule to backup my Mac?

Joined
Dec 25, 2009
Messages
71
Reaction score
0
Points
6
Location
Canada, NS
Your Mac's Specs
15" MacBook Pro (OS X Leopard 10.5.8), Intel Core 2 Duo (2.53Ghz), 4GB RAM, 7200RPM/250GB HDD
New to the Mac scene sorry. I just don't understand why I have to go buy a Time Capsule to back up my MBP. Can I backup without one?

Also, can I use a Time Capsule as a wireless external HDD ? or are they onl for backing up?

Thx,
 
Joined
Apr 7, 2009
Messages
3,308
Reaction score
58
Points
48
Location
Whangarei NZ
Your Mac's Specs
27 iMac+Thunderbolt, iMac 21,
Yes u can use a HD for TM backups. TCs become really advantageous with 2 or more computers on your LAN then both/all can back up to TC which is a wireless router and HD in one box. For u the important issue could well be if the HD on your MBP fails then having a bootable copy so u can continue working will be important, check out SuperDuper here.
 
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
675
Reaction score
22
Points
18
Location
Scotland, UK
Your Mac's Specs
nMP 6-core/32Gb/D700/512Gb: rMBP 15" 2.3GHz/16Gb/512Gb: iPhone 6 128Gb: iPad Air 2 128Gb: NEC PA322U
Any HDD will do, I use a LaCie 2big Quadra as my TM drive.

Personally I'd avoid the Time Capsules at all costs since they are just single drives, I like my backup disks RAIDed for extra security...
 
OP
Hi Tek
Joined
Dec 25, 2009
Messages
71
Reaction score
0
Points
6
Location
Canada, NS
Your Mac's Specs
15" MacBook Pro (OS X Leopard 10.5.8), Intel Core 2 Duo (2.53Ghz), 4GB RAM, 7200RPM/250GB HDD
Theres a LaCie 1TB on sale @ my local futureshop for 99.99. Maybe ill just go with that. Do TCs come in different sizes? if so what? if not, what is the size for TCs ?
 
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
675
Reaction score
22
Points
18
Location
Scotland, UK
Your Mac's Specs
nMP 6-core/32Gb/D700/512Gb: rMBP 15" 2.3GHz/16Gb/512Gb: iPhone 6 128Gb: iPad Air 2 128Gb: NEC PA322U
1Tb and 2Tb version are available.
 
Joined
Apr 7, 2009
Messages
3,308
Reaction score
58
Points
48
Location
Whangarei NZ
Your Mac's Specs
27 iMac+Thunderbolt, iMac 21,
And the latest TCs also do dual band wireless which is a plus if one has an iPhone or other devices on 11g
 
Joined
Jul 9, 2009
Messages
356
Reaction score
3
Points
18
Location
Colorado
New to the Mac scene sorry. I just don't understand why I have to go buy a Time Capsule to back up my MBP. Can I backup without one?

Also, can I use a Time Capsule as a wireless external HDD ? or are they onl for backing up?

Thx,
I believe you'll need an Airport Extreme router to set up your external HDD on your wireless network.

I'm presently running a Seagate Free Agent via USB to my MBP and it has worked very nicely since I bought my MBP 4 months ago.

Today I ordered an Airport Extreme so I can get the Seagate on my wireless network.

There are some other solutions to putting an external HD on your wireless network but results are not so good. I had bad luck with one called SimpleNet or something like that, so I'm going with the Airport Extreme.

Good luck.
 
Joined
Sep 26, 2008
Messages
497
Reaction score
12
Points
18
Location
Camp Hill, Pa
Your Mac's Specs
15in MBP - 27in iMac - iPhone
Looks like everyone touched up on what i was going to mention.

I'm personally in the market for a back up, I was very interested in the TC, but the fact that it is only one driver kinda worries me. So I'm considering a Drobo or a NAS system.
 
Joined
Nov 15, 2006
Messages
184
Reaction score
2
Points
18
Location
San Francisco, CA
Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I have one additional question. I have been seriously thinking of getting a Drobo but was curious is it able to be used for Time Machine for more than one machine? Ideally I would like it to be attached to my airport extreme and serve as a back up system for the iMac and MBP. Any other suggestions are welcomed.
 

bobtomay

,
Retired Staff
Joined
Dec 22, 2006
Messages
26,561
Reaction score
677
Points
113
Location
Texas, where else?
Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
Frankly, I am not familiar enough with the Drobo to know whether it can be used with TM or not. I can tell you that TM backups from multiple machines can be kept on the same partition along with any other data. TM backups do not require their own partition as do bootable clone backups.
 
Joined
Jul 30, 2009
Messages
7,295
Reaction score
301
Points
83
Location
Wisconsin
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Mini (Late 2014) 2.6GHz Intel Core i5 Memory: 8GB 1600MHz DDR3
... TC which is a wireless router and HD in one box.

Does that mean that two computers, not networked, can backup to a TC wirelessly? (Or did I just abuse the terminology?)
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2008
Messages
707
Reaction score
13
Points
18
They would have to be networked to back up to it. The TC is not a USB drive but rather a network based storage solution.
 
Joined
Feb 25, 2009
Messages
2,112
Reaction score
71
Points
48
Your Mac's Specs
Late 2013 rMBP, i7, 750m gpu, OSX versions 10.9.3, 10.10
If the computers have WiFi toMACsh, they should be able to connect to the TC and backup (of course, at that point, they are now part of your wifi network and are no longer "not networked" - they are just not wired networked)

To Michael415: yes, you can use a Drobo as a TM backup device - I don't know if it will work on a airport extreme, but you do have to take some precautions.

For those that don't know what a Drobo is, it's a special raid device that allows you to dynamically grow your storage, including yanking and replacing existing drives with larger ones. There is a trade off to this - for it to work, you have to format the drive for the overall size you'd *like* it to be - ie: let's say you have 2x 500g drives and you put them in the Drobo - the drobo will technically raid them in a mirror giving you ~500g of real useable storage. BUT when you format the array (which you need to do thru their software) you setup what the max size of the array one day[/b ] can be, so you can set it up to be 8TB. The OS will see a 8TB drive w/ ~8TB available, but in reality since you only have those 2x 500g drives mirrored, you only have 500g available. The only way to know for sure the available space is to either: use the drobo software which will always tell you your real space available, or look at the pretty blue lights on the front and guestimate how much space is used. This is why you have to take precautions - since the OS will think the drobo storage is larger then it really is (potentially) it won't know when the drive is really out of space and keep attempting to write to it. In the past people have created sparesbundles to setup a max storage size for the TM backups.

But, here's some info right at data robotics: What do I need to keep in mind when using my Drobo storage device with Time Machine, AirPort Extreme, and/or Time Capsule?

If the network drive is recognized via SMB take a look at this: 10.5: Store Time Machine backups on an AFP NAS - Mac OS X Hints

I do own a DRobo, but honestly, I don't use it for my time machine, I use it solely for my video/music bank for my network at home.
 
Joined
Nov 15, 2006
Messages
184
Reaction score
2
Points
18
Location
San Francisco, CA
If the computers have WiFi toMACsh, they should be able to connect to the TC and backup (of course, at that point, they are now part of your wifi network and are no longer "not networked" - they are just not wired networked)

To Michael415: yes, you can use a Drobo as a TM backup device - I don't know if it will work on a airport extreme, but you do have to take some precautions.

For those that don't know what a Drobo is, it's a special raid device that allows you to dynamically grow your storage, including yanking and replacing existing drives with larger ones. There is a trade off to this - for it to work, you have to format the drive for the overall size you'd *like* it to be - ie: let's say you have 2x 500g drives and you put them in the Drobo - the drobo will technically raid them in a mirror giving you ~500g of real useable storage. BUT when you format the array (which you need to do thru their software) you setup what the max size of the array one day[/b ] can be, so you can set it up to be 8TB. The OS will see a 8TB drive w/ ~8TB available, but in reality since you only have those 2x 500g drives mirrored, you only have 500g available. The only way to know for sure the available space is to either: use the drobo software which will always tell you your real space available, or look at the pretty blue lights on the front and guestimate how much space is used. This is why you have to take precautions - since the OS will think the drobo storage is larger then it really is (potentially) it won't know when the drive is really out of space and keep attempting to write to it. In the past people have created sparesbundles to setup a max storage size for the TM backups.

But, here's some info right at data robotics: What do I need to keep in mind when using my Drobo storage device with Time Machine, AirPort Extreme, and/or Time Capsule?

If the network drive is recognized via SMB take a look at this: 10.5: Store Time Machine backups on an AFP NAS - Mac OS X Hints

I do own a DRobo, but honestly, I don't use it for my time machine, I use it solely for my video/music bank for my network at home.


Thanks for the info. It sounds like it is feasible then. I had done some research and others are using a drobo with TM via airport extreme on one computer but I was not sure if 2 would cause a wrinkle.
Another question how do you find the speed of the drobo? There are so many mixed reviews on the speed. Do you have it connected to your computer via USB, FW or network? I am thinking of putting 2 2tb drives to start with in the drobo which should give me plenty of storage space for TM as well as storing vids, music etc.
 
Joined
Feb 25, 2009
Messages
2,112
Reaction score
71
Points
48
Your Mac's Specs
Late 2013 rMBP, i7, 750m gpu, OSX versions 10.9.3, 10.10
Mine is currently hooked into my Droboshare on my network. Mine is also a 1st gen drobo (usb only) and compared to everything I've read, it's much slower then the current version drobo. Reading from it over the network is good enough to handle 1080p streams @25Mbps (that's bits per second) but writing to it is kinda slow (but as I said, from what I've seen the 2nd gen that has firewire and usb2.0 is much faster)
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top