[Stormchild]

Great review. Thorough analysis and detailed info. I deem it Ars-worthy.

[wgood]

Can Time Capsule be used with non-Leopard backup solutions?

If it can be mounted without Time Machine, I could theoretically use a separate piece of software for Tiger and use it as a backup disk. One of our machines is still on Panther, so I'm looking at all the options.

[Glenn_Fleishman]

Virginian said:

I think your information on Mozy may be out of date they are part of EMC a 30.7 Billion dollar company.

You are correct -- my mistake for forgetting that. In that case, it's much easier to have few fears (beyond just the normal and reasonable ones about trusting your data to third parties) about the stability and longevity of Mozy.

Still, I can't see Apple entering this business because it's a very hard one to run unless you have huge scale, and it's a key part of what you do. Without that motivation, Apple can just say, "We have Time Machine or you can use a third-party service."

[hayesk]

CJSweatt said:

Quote

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.

Send it in to get fixed then. It amazes me when people have things that don't work properly, but then just accept it. Call Apple and make them fix it or take it back. It's not as if it's out of warranty.

[missjune79]

hello cj.... i had the exact same troubles as you when i first got my 500 gb TC (mine shipped early march, therefore i got the early model, w/o these updates!)....basically i had trouble connecting to the internet b/c my tc wasn't reading my IP address (my macbook pro connects to internet via cable modem, did not have previous router). i called apple tech support (as your dsl provider won't help you out), and they had me restart the device entirely, then here's the magic trick that is not included in the instructions: after completing set-up once you've reset the tc, when you get that error window stating 'no IP address' (or whatever it is), you need to unplug the cable modem's power cord - wait 10 seconds - and then unplug the tc's power cord. after 2 minutes, first plug the cable modem's power cord back in - wait 10 secs - then plug in the tc. make sure you join your network, and you should be connected to the internet via tc with no problems. mine has been working great since this ridiculous sounding troubleshooting tip...but it IS up and running. hope this helps, and that you get a green light once and for all.

[CJSweatt]

Thank you so much for the suggestion!!! I'll try that as soon as I get home tonight and let you know how it goes.

Thanks again. I REALLY appreciate it!

[jwt1009]

Although I have not had a chance to try it, I have been told by Apple support that Time Capsule can be partitioned using Disk Utility and one of the partitions used for Time Machine and the other for file storage etc. Has anyone tried to partition TC for a similar use?

[Glenn_Fleishman]

jwt1009 said:

Although I have not had a chance to try it, I have been told by Apple support that Time Capsule can be partitioned using Disk Utility and one of the partitions used for Time Machine and the other for file storage etc. Has anyone tried to partition TC for a similar use?

That would be a report from the smoking dope area of tech support at Apple.

The internal drive of the Time Capsule can only be modified through AirPort Utility in its Disks tab, which has a single button for controlling the drive's content: Erase.

Disk Utility can only partition locally connected drives, not networked drives.

You can, however, format an external drive with 2 or more partitions via Disk Utility while connected to a Mac, unmount it, plug it into Time Capsule, and each partition is separately recognized. However, Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme Base Station lack any tools to control what's shared, so having 100 partitions means having 100 separately mountable AFP shares that all users with credentials can access.

[missjune79]

Does anyone have any idea why my time machine won't read my time capsule anymore?? I set my time capsule to time machine last week, and now when I open time machine the error window reads: The storage location for Time Machine backups can't be found.
My TC is among the first of shipments, is this the problem? Faulty, first product??
Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thx.

[moloko]

Storing iTunes music data on the TimeCapsule works fine for me. I have a MacMini connected to the TimeCapsule via ethernet and my g/friend has an XP laptop that connects wirelessly.

We both store our iTunes music in the same folder on TimeCapsule but have separate iTunes libraries. This does mean that if I import a CD that my girlfriend also wants to have then she has to import it too but otherwise it all works fine. I'm not sure what version of 802.11 her laptop uses but it's a couple of years old so won't be the latest spec.

We can also finally share the printer properly which is a huge bonus too! Though it's an all-in-one printer/scanner/copier and I haven't tried scanning yet in its new configuration - somehow I doubt that will work but it's rare that we need to scan and for those occasions when we do it can just be plugged directly into the appropriate computer.

[sfgs]

I have the 500 GB Time Capsule. I used Time Machine for the first time but it ™ kept freezing and exhibiting unpredictable behavior that made no sense. The Apple tech asked if I had Intego security software installed and that I should disable it.
As soon as I did this, Time Machine worked perfectly. After some experimentation, Virus Barrier X5 was the culprit - not Net Barrier X5. I sent an email to Intego about this on Saturday but no reply yet as the US techs are on training this week.
So in order to use Time Machine, one has to remember to disable Virus Barrier at least until Intego fixes it.
Hopefully this hint will let someone else avoid endless hours of frustration.

[ck4jc]

When you say "Mbps" do you mean "MBps"?
There is a difference between Megabits (Mb) and Megabytes (MB). Obviously the difference is division by 8.
So when you say your benchmark gigabit ethernet was at 200 Mbps, is that 200MB per second or, 25MB per second? (200/8)
I use Menu Meters to track my throughput and I want to gauge my connection with your benchmark. But I need to know your measurement. Thanks!

[Glenn_Fleishman]

ck4jc said:

When you say "Mbps" do you mean "MBps"?

There is a difference between Megabits (Mb) and Megabytes (MB). Obviously the difference is division by 8.

So when you say your benchmark gigabit ethernet was at 200 Mbps, is that 200MB per second or, 25MB per second? (200/8)

I use Menu Meters to track my throughput and I want to gauge my connection with your benchmark. But I need to know your measurement. Thanks!

This is such a long-running style problem; I wish there were simply different words.

We were talking about megabits per second, which is not universally, but is consistently at Macworld and many publications shortened to Mbps, with the M capitalized to distinguish it (and other binary-powers words) from metric. (That is, you have m for meter, M for mega; k for kilo (1,000) and K for 2^8 or 1,024, etc.). Almost universally, when discussing network performance, Mbps is meant. Megabytes per second is typically reserved for hard disk transfers over a system bus, but even then you see FireWire noted as 400 Mbps not 56 MB/s. (Further, even though there are 8 bits in a byte, a byte has overhead on a network, so dividing by 8 doesn't actually produce the number of bytes transferred in the same period of time.)

Some publications have chosen to write it as Mbit/s or even mbit/s; megabytes per second is often written as MB/s, but then why capitalize that B? Sometimes you'll see Mbyte/s, too. The overhead issue is why bits is often chosen as a better measure of real gross rates.

Gigabit Ethernet can achieve speeds as fast as 980 Mbps (raw), but in computer-to-computer tests using AFP over gigabit Ethernet, I saw at best about 200 Mbps (about 30 MB/s).

[matthol2]

Glenn_Fleishman said:

Gigabit Ethernet can achieve speeds as fast as 980 Mbps (raw), but in computer-to-computer tests using AFP over gigabit Ethernet, I saw at best about 200 Mbps (about 30 MB/s).

Quote

{quote:title=Glenn_Fleishman wrote (orig article):}{quote}

With Time Machine added into the mix, performance suffered in initial testing, with speeds as low as 15 Mbps on multiple networks and systems tested with Time Capsule?s internal drive, regardless of whether backups were run over gigabit Ethernet or Wi-Fi. However, an obscure network setting change quadrupled backup throughput. Apple was clearly aware that something was awry with Leopard?s networking performance, as it fixed Leopard?s networking system through the March software updates, obviating the need to change this setting. Depending on the size and number of files being backed up, throughput ranged from 45 to 60 Mbps over gigabit Ethernet. This would put an initial 100GB backup at 4 to 6 hours.

I just got my Time Capsule; my Leopard machines have all the latest updates, and I'm seeing your 15Mbps number for file transfers to TC over Ethernet or 801.11n (and much, much higher speeds copying between desktop & laptop). A 33GB initial backup took like 20 hours for one laptop; the other laptop has never completed successfully. I rebooted the TC and still had very bad performance. Copying 60MB took nearly 6 minutes!

What's the "obscure network setting change"? Maybe I should try that...