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Apple Time Capsule MB276LL/A (AirPort Extreme Plus 500 GB Storage)
See it at Amazon.com for $191.99Average Customer Rating
(3.5 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
Most Helpful First | Newest First | + Share4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Do your homework first,then buy.........
(4 out of 5) by John B. on Mar 27, 2009 (Colorado)I had lots of problems setting the Time Capsule up,although most of the problems were my own misunderstanding of the Time Capsule's capabilities.
First,my DSL router from my ISP(Qwest) was getting in the way and not allowing the Time Capsule to set up...Apple phone support identified the problem and we changed some settings in Airport Utility and I was on line.
Second,T.C. could not see my printer through USB connection.........Apple phone support found the needed drivers for my printer,sent them to me and now I've got the printer working,but........
Third,the printer works fine but it's an all in one and it won't scan.....Apple phone support concludes that scanning from an all in one is not possible with any brand printer,but I need that capability so I hard wired the printer to the computer.........
Forth,I plug an external hard drive into the USB outlet on Time Capsule in hope of using it to wirelessly back up my Macbook Pro,but the existing backup can't be seen by my iMac or the Macbook Pro.......Apple phone support claim that some hard drives won't work with Time Capsule...........
I can't except this so I book a session at the genius bar at the local Apple store and within a few minutes the genius concludes that the existing Time Machine backup of the Mackook Pro won't work and the external needs to be erased and backed up with Time Machine through the Time Capsule.This worked and the Apple phone support was wrong.You see a back up on the time capsule creates a backup called a sparsebundle which is a password protected network backup not found when you connect an external to the computer the regular wired way.I hope from reading this you will have a better understanding of the difference between a wired and wireless backup. Now the iMac is backed up through Time Capsule and the Macbook Pro is backed up through the external that is connected to the Time Capsule.I deducted one star from my rating because of the inability to scan from an all in one printer.
So,even with all that I would recommend it because I was able to add the storage I needed and it is all done wirelessly and eliminating wires is always a good thing to me.
First,my DSL router from my ISP(Qwest) was getting in the way and not allowing the Time Capsule to set up...Apple phone support identified the problem and we changed some settings in Airport Utility and I was on line.
Second,T.C. could not see my printer through USB connection.........Apple phone support found the needed drivers for my printer,sent them to me and now I've got the printer working,but........
Third,the printer works fine but it's an all in one and it won't scan.....Apple phone support concludes that scanning from an all in one is not possible with any brand printer,but I need that capability so I hard wired the printer to the computer.........
Forth,I plug an external hard drive into the USB outlet on Time Capsule in hope of using it to wirelessly back up my Macbook Pro,but the existing backup can't be seen by my iMac or the Macbook Pro.......Apple phone support claim that some hard drives won't work with Time Capsule...........
I can't except this so I book a session at the genius bar at the local Apple store and within a few minutes the genius concludes that the existing Time Machine backup of the Mackook Pro won't work and the external needs to be erased and backed up with Time Machine through the Time Capsule.This worked and the Apple phone support was wrong.You see a back up on the time capsule creates a backup called a sparsebundle which is a password protected network backup not found when you connect an external to the computer the regular wired way.I hope from reading this you will have a better understanding of the difference between a wired and wireless backup. Now the iMac is backed up through Time Capsule and the Macbook Pro is backed up through the external that is connected to the Time Capsule.I deducted one star from my rating because of the inability to scan from an all in one printer.
So,even with all that I would recommend it because I was able to add the storage I needed and it is all done wirelessly and eliminating wires is always a good thing to me.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Great Product!
(5 out of 5) by AB on Mar 30, 2008 (So. CA USA)Got this as a replacement for an older Linksys router and to use automatic backups with Time Machine. Works perfectly! Setup is easy if the instructions are followed exactly. One thing that I had to do was to reset my cable modem after setup like the instructions say. After I did that I was up and running. I was a little hesitant to buy at first, reading a lot of negative reviews, but I think the key is to follow the instructions. All of my laptops and my network printer are working great with this router. I have two Macbooks and one laptop running Vista and one running XP. I also have the Wii console working with this. All were easy to configure and work well. The backups are also easy. The first backup takes awhile so do it overnight. A little pricey but It works very well.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Works as Promised!
(5 out of 5) by Anthony Brillon on Mar 22, 2008 (Texas)Im a new apple convert. I just purchased a macbook for my wife about a month ago. I finally got fed up with windows. My Linksys router which is a wireless B router is tired, and failing. So I decided since I bought my wife a new laptop, and I will be buying an imac soon, I would splurge and get the Time Capsule. I dreaded the networking nightmare on getting the macbook, my current xp box, 2 usb printers, an external hard drive, and ipod.
To my surprise it didnt take long at all to set this up. I started with just plugging up the time capsule directly to the macbook. Setup was a breeze. I then plugged up the windows box. It also was a breeze as it was simply going to ethernet. I did have problems with the two usb printers though. They worked fine printing through a usb hub connected to the windows box, but I couldnt get it to work on the macbook. I simply reinstalled the drivers in the macbook and it worked. I also have an external hard drive as well as an ipod hooked into my usb hub which is also plugged into the time capsule. Everything works great!
It took longer to backup the macbook using time machine then setting Time Capsule up. I highly recommend this. Its a breeze!!!!
To my surprise it didnt take long at all to set this up. I started with just plugging up the time capsule directly to the macbook. Setup was a breeze. I then plugged up the windows box. It also was a breeze as it was simply going to ethernet. I did have problems with the two usb printers though. They worked fine printing through a usb hub connected to the windows box, but I couldnt get it to work on the macbook. I simply reinstalled the drivers in the macbook and it worked. I also have an external hard drive as well as an ipod hooked into my usb hub which is also plugged into the time capsule. Everything works great!
It took longer to backup the macbook using time machine then setting Time Capsule up. I highly recommend this. Its a breeze!!!!
23 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
The Time is not right for Time Capsule yet
(1 out of 5) by Dipe Chatterjee on Apr 13, 2008 (MUMBAI, Maharashtra India)First, I'm a hardcore Apple fan and have used Macs from the LC days (last century!), so don't get me wrong on this.
I regret my purchase of Time Capsule. Seriously. And if I had a way of returning it (I'm 12,563 km away from the NY Apple Store where it was purchased), I would.
The TC's size is LARGE, larger than the footprint (Al base) of an iMac 20", and it's heavy. Given today's HD form factors, I was expecting something much smaller. In fact, look at how Apple has shrunk the new Aiport Extreme base stations.
Setup with Leopard and Time Machine isn't difficult, but it's not the fabled Apple kind of easy. WiFi and internet were up after a couple of attempts and one hardware reset. The initial backup... ah! there lies the rub...
I did it the logical ethernet way (Apple should have warned newbies about this), and believe me, I would not like to repeat the process. 1st attempt: 24 hours+, and a defective backup (for only 80 GB!); 2nd attempt (after firmware upgrade, sw update), 6 hours, with quite a few hitches in between.
Conceptually the Time Capsule is a good product; wifi backup, and Airport base station. But perhaps Apple should have warned about how long backups are going to take via Ethernet or Wifi (people are reporting 24 hours plus). That effectively means that your Mac or MacBook is tethered to your Time Capsule for that length of time.
Perhaps you'd like to sleep over it before you buy one.
I regret my purchase of Time Capsule. Seriously. And if I had a way of returning it (I'm 12,563 km away from the NY Apple Store where it was purchased), I would.
The TC's size is LARGE, larger than the footprint (Al base) of an iMac 20", and it's heavy. Given today's HD form factors, I was expecting something much smaller. In fact, look at how Apple has shrunk the new Aiport Extreme base stations.
Setup with Leopard and Time Machine isn't difficult, but it's not the fabled Apple kind of easy. WiFi and internet were up after a couple of attempts and one hardware reset. The initial backup... ah! there lies the rub...
I did it the logical ethernet way (Apple should have warned newbies about this), and believe me, I would not like to repeat the process. 1st attempt: 24 hours+, and a defective backup (for only 80 GB!); 2nd attempt (after firmware upgrade, sw update), 6 hours, with quite a few hitches in between.
Conceptually the Time Capsule is a good product; wifi backup, and Airport base station. But perhaps Apple should have warned about how long backups are going to take via Ethernet or Wifi (people are reporting 24 hours plus). That effectively means that your Mac or MacBook is tethered to your Time Capsule for that length of time.
Perhaps you'd like to sleep over it before you buy one.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Time Capsules are dying - Check Apple Support forums
(1 out of 5) by J. T. Burke on Sep 25, 2009I bought a Time Capsule in March, 2008. 500GB. The first one I got at the Apple Store in NYC did not work. I brought it back to the store about two days later and they replaced it, no questions asked.
Since then the Time Capsule has been functioning well. There was one point where it would not back up and after trying a few fixes I had to erase the entire drive and start over. I was not thrilled, but I understand that with computers, there are hassles from time to time.
For the past few weeks the connection would drop at random times and the Time Capsule would reboot. Annoying, odd, but I was not certain about what to do.
Yesterday it died. Fully dead. I brought it to the Apple Genius Bar today and they told me, "Sometimes things break." Nonsense. These are not supposed to have an 18 month shelf life.
If you go to the Apple Support forums you will see loads and loads of people reporting this exact same issue. There are two threads of about 12 pages each. CNet, tuaw, etc. have now all taken notice and written about the plague of dying Time Capsules.
It seems the units run hot and after a while the electrics are cooked and the power source fails. As I understand it, the drive is still fine, but the electrics are shot.
Until Apple publicly addresses and solves this problem do not buy this or any Time Capsule product. In 18 months you will be looking a a very expensive, very white paperweight, and Apple will 'fix' this for you by encouraging you to buy a new one.
Since then the Time Capsule has been functioning well. There was one point where it would not back up and after trying a few fixes I had to erase the entire drive and start over. I was not thrilled, but I understand that with computers, there are hassles from time to time.
For the past few weeks the connection would drop at random times and the Time Capsule would reboot. Annoying, odd, but I was not certain about what to do.
Yesterday it died. Fully dead. I brought it to the Apple Genius Bar today and they told me, "Sometimes things break." Nonsense. These are not supposed to have an 18 month shelf life.
If you go to the Apple Support forums you will see loads and loads of people reporting this exact same issue. There are two threads of about 12 pages each. CNet, tuaw, etc. have now all taken notice and written about the plague of dying Time Capsules.
It seems the units run hot and after a while the electrics are cooked and the power source fails. As I understand it, the drive is still fine, but the electrics are shot.
Until Apple publicly addresses and solves this problem do not buy this or any Time Capsule product. In 18 months you will be looking a a very expensive, very white paperweight, and Apple will 'fix' this for you by encouraging you to buy a new one.