Apple Time Capsule?

chrism_scotland

chrism_scotland

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I've just bought a Macbook Pro with a 512GB SSD but I'm now looking for options to expand my storage and I'm not entirely sure where to start!
The wireless Time Capsule (2TB) looks like it would let me offload anything like video or photo's I've edited to help keep free space on the MBP but I wondered if anyone uses one and how well it works?

I've also considered the 4TB Western Digital Passport Drive which connects via Thunderbolt as this would provide a load of storage albeit not wirelessly!

What are folk here using?
 
I use time capsule just for time machine.

All other work goes on external drives by usb 3, quick wnough and cheaper then TB
 
I may be wrong, but when I bought a 2tb time capsule just over a year ago I thought you could only use them for backing up e.g. Not as a wireless hard drive?

Even if you could I'd rather have something wired to the MBP so you could move it around easily e.g. When travelling. I've got a pair of small USB3 hard drives (one for archived photos and another for videos).
 
Whilst you can use a Time Capsule for storage, it is designed to be used as a backup device. If you do use it for storage, make sure you have that data elsewhere.

Always remember the mantra - data that exists in one place only doesn't really exist.
 
Jayst84 said:
Don't understand Time Capsule. Just plug a drive in for a fraction of the cost. (y)

I have a pile of WD drives. Get at least two separate drives to start with, then you can have an actual backup and keep space on your laptop.
Click to expand...
You can use pen and paper instead of a PC for the fraction of the cost, doesn't mean it does a better job.
 
The thing I've liked about time capsule is you just plug it in, set it up and then completely forget about it. Agree they are expensive though.
 
If you want to back up I've found the carbon copy cloner app to be great. You can even try it as a free trial to see if it works for you before buying it. I have various backups set up to copy data across every week (you set time intervals and it can even turn the mac on and off to do it). Some backups are for hard drives that are always plugged in but for my off site hard drives it recognises when the drives are connected and automatically backs them up. Since setup it's been completely automatic other than me bringing the off site hard drives back to back up.
 
A second recommendation for Carnon Copy Cloner. It's very very clever software (I use the time capsule for continuous back ups and CCC with external drives for off site backups).
 
Jayst84 said:
Don't understand Time Capsule. Just plug a drive in for a fraction of the cost. (y)

I have a pile of WD drives. Get at least two separate drives to start with, then you can have an actual backup and keep space on your laptop.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I use a cheap external USB hard drive. Just plug it in, set it up and forget about it.

As for external storage, I use an SSD in a USB 3 enclosure.
TB is far to expensive.
 
Apple stuff is expensive but if that's what you want buy it, bus as folk have said data in just one place is disposable. Also think if you have you laptop and time capsule in one place that burglar or house fire is going to realy ruin your day
 
I use a Synology NAS for this. 8TB in the enclosure, I can connect to it via ethernet or wifi, and it backs itself up to S3 each night. I also have another basic USB external hard drive plugged in to the NAS, and my time machine backups are done over wifi to that.
 
I think its possible I have two separate requirements here then,
1. I want the capability to have a drive that's fast enough for me to use to store and access images, video and any other files I have, and I'd imagine that if I want to use this as "extra" storage for the MBP it probably needs to be a wired drive, I was looking at Thunderbolt as the price didn't seem too bad v USB3.0 for a desktop drive and I'm already using my 2x USB ports so a Thunderbolt I could leave plugged in all the time.

Ideally I need to add a good USB 3.0 HUB but I wasn't sure if this was reliable enough to have an external HDD plugged into it?

2. Potential Wireless backup, mainly for media (videos and pictures), its possible that a NAS option would be better for this though than the Apple Time Capsule as its seems to be better value and more versatile so that other machines in the house can use it as well.
 
1. Do you need to access video on the fly? Or just say watch video?
If you need quicker then a Tb drive would be great

2. A Nas would be perfect
 
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