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"A 1.07GB file took 40 seconds to transfer between two Leopard systems over AFP on a Gigabit network (about 200 Mbps), but the same file took 115 seconds to copy directly from a Time Machine backup folder to a Leopard system (about 75 Mbps). Once the Time Capsule firmware update was installed, AFP performance increased to this rate, an improvement of about 25 percent."
AFP performance increased to what rate? From 75 Mbps to 200 Mbps? Isn't that an improvement of 266 percent?

Was wondering, can Time Capsule be used to stream iTunes? Presently I have a 15" PB but my iTunes library lives on a separate 500 GB FW 800 drive. I'd like to untether my laptop at home and be able to have iTunes hook up to its library folder wirelessly. Is TC fast enough for this? (I know my PB is the g flavor of wi-fi but eventually I'll be buying a new MBP.)

DavidCar said:

Terribly sorry for any confusion.

Between two Leopard systems, I got 200 Mbps for a benchmark using an AFP server on one of them.

Between a Leopard system and Time Capsule, I saw 75 Mbps over AFP (not using Time Machine), which was a 25% increase over the 60 Mbps that I saw before the March 19 updates released by Apple for Leopard, AirPort, and Time Capsule.

tony_d said:

iTunes is very unpleasant about networked libraries. It's probably worth an article (if Macworld hasn't covered it since Leopard), because it's not trivial to set up if more than one person is using the library.

In terms of speed -- no problem.

Is it possible to store your itunes library on the time capsule for use by the whole network?

Just a head's up of a minor change to the review to clarify something. The second paragraph of the Networked Time Machine section now reads: "Time Machine can store archives on a separate hard drive on a computer on which it's running--not a partition on the startup drive, but a physically different drive. It can also copy files over a network to a drive attached to another machine running the end-user version of Leopard, to a Leopard Server system, or to a Time Capsule."

The "startup drive" part was added as a point of clarification since Time Machine can be used with partitions.

Well I am unhappy, while my time capsule worked, albeit slower than with upgrade it worked faster with upgrade and such, but when I opened the airport utility it upgraded the firmware on my time capsule and then waited for it to restart, never did to the satisfaction of my airport utility even though green lite is on solid. Neither my macbook or iMac can ow see to backup and my airport utility cannot connect even though after pulling plug on time capsule and getting green light solid again every time. The darn firmware seems to have bricked my time capsule. This has been a flakey hard to use drive but I had it working and this firmware ruined that. I am sending it back to apple, this was too much money for such behavior!
Russ jacobson

dino_russ said:

Have you tried following the directions for a hard restart? I had this problem once with the firmware revision before this update, and a hard reset actually didn't delete any settings -- it prompted me for actions after it rebooted, and then worked fine thereafter.

You might call tech support; they might ship you a new unit under warranty.

If I wanted to use this to just dump a few folders onto, would I have to mount it manually?

[quote name='Glenn_Fleishman']

> [quote name='dino_russ']Well I am unhappy, while my time capsule worked, albeit slower than with upgrade it worked faster with upgrade and such, but when I opened the airport utility it upgraded the firmware on my time capsule and then waited for it to restart, never did to the satisfaction of my airport utility even though green lite is on solid. Neither my macbook or iMac can ow see to backup and my airport utility cannot connect even though after pulling plug on time capsule and getting green light solid again every time. The darn firmware seems to have bricked my time capsule. This has been a flakey hard to use drive but I had it working and this firmware ruined that. I am sending it back to apple, this was too much money for such behavior!
>
> Russ jacobson
Have you tried following the directions for a hard restart? I had this problem once with the firmware revision before this update, and a hard reset actually didn't delete any settings -- it prompted me for actions after it rebooted, and then worked fine thereafter.


You might call tech support; they might ship you a new unit under warranty.


[/quote]

Yep tried a hard reset, no avail.I finally found insructions for the downgrade to 7.3 firmware and have left it there where things work fine (faster after the airport part of upgrade even if I cannot do the time capsule upgrade. The upgrade leaves the TC unavailable to either my macbook or iMac (which I am running the airport network from, not the TC) I have up and downgraded 3 times, same result so leaving at 7.3.

Time Machine's UI to restore files from was inaccessible until I logged into the Time Capsule mounted on my desktop. That was never mentioned in the instructions. Sure - I worked it out, but what about regular users? I don't think Apple tests their products any more... Leopard and Leopard-related products are nothing but trouble for me.

I purchased the 1T model, and I am not at all pleased with it. When I first set it up, I used it for backups only. No problems there with wireless backups of both my Macs. Two weeks later, I decided I wanted to replace it as my primary router. Setup was easy at first - until I hit "Save Preferences". Time Capsule restarted, and I was never able to connect to it again - "Could not find wireless device". Although I am able to access it via USB for backups, I cannot do it wirelessly any longer. TC keeps flashing an amber light and I can't get rid of it. The IP address issue keeps haunting me as well. It will not recognize my IP address. I've even contacted my DSL service provider. No luck. I never imagined a router would be this difficult to set up.
Needless to say, I went back to my Linksys router, and am using TC for weekly backups, or whenever I feel like connecting it to a USB cable...
Now I have a very expensive little, white box sitting in my room with a neat, flashing amber light.

A couple of notes from my experience with the Time Capsule, FWIW. I've got a Time Capsule as a base, with an Airport Extreme (non-gigabyte) and a new Express(n) arranged in a WDS.
The Express does, indeed work with the Time Capsule as a bridge, but you have to set it up as a WDS, not simply choose "extend a network." It's a bit flaky and takes time to settle in, but it does work, even with the older TC software (I haven't updated).
You can write a simple AppleScript to mount the drive every time you (or another user) logs in - you can find the script with Google. The drive will show up as a share on your desktop and in the sidebar within finder windows. You can easily drop things into the Time Capsule disk.
You can serve iTunes music and iPod movies from the device, at least for one user (I haven't tried more than one user at a time). Music is no problem at all, but movies at higher bit rates than the iPod may stutter.
We've used it to consolidate the iTunes music from our family's various libraries. Just select the network drive as the iTunes drive. The database remains local, so everybody's music doesn't show up in everyone else's library. So far it's working well.