Apple Time Capsule MB277LL/A (AirPort Extreme Plus 1 TB Storage)
by Apple Computer
|
List Price: Our Price: $184.99 You Save: $315.00 (63%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Apple Time Capsule MB277LL/A (AirPort Extreme Plus 1 TB Storage)
Customer Review: Good product, but a few things missing.
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought this so I could have a central wireless HDD for my home network. The problem was, you can't use a router with it. It has to be the router, and it's slower than the router I had. Also, if you're going to get one, make sure you check the price at an apple store or best buy. I thought I was getting a good deal because of the retail vs. the actual price, but 1 week later I saw it in an apple store for $50 less!!Customer Review: Sounded great - failed after less than a month
Summary: 2 Stars
I purchased the 1TB version of the Time Capsule. I already owned an Airport Extreme and was replacing it with the Time Capsule. A nice setup feature allowed the Time Capsule to see the Older Airport Extreme and import all of the settings. This made setting up the Time Capsule extremely easy - by using the same settings, all of my Macs worked with Time Capsule right away.
Unfortunately, after 4 weeks, my Macs all reported that they could not see the Time Capsule Hard drive. When I looked closely at the Time Capsule - it was making a loud/repetitive clicking noise - hard drive failure. I have 5 macs running in my home. None of them have ever had a hard drive failure - but you never know (which is why I bought the Time Capsule). It's disconcerting to have the very device - that I purchased to ensure my data was backed up - fail.
I took it to the Apple store and the exchanged it - no questions asked. But - it took me a long time to back up all of my Macs (the first backup using Time Machine/Time Capsule takes a very long time for each Mac). Additionally, unlike my initial setup, I could not simply copy the settings from my existing Time Capsule - I had to set it all up from scratch. Also - the Time Capsule that I retuned to the Apple store had all of my personal information on it. Even though it was a failed hard drive - I'm not happy that all of my financial data, keychains, etc were on that hard drive.
Customer Review: Overpromised, Underdelivered
Summary: 1 Stars
EDIT: Please note that the firmware for this product has been updated since I wrote this. Below is my review of the original firmware; I do not plan to check out the updated product.
------
I had very high hopes for this product when it was announced earlier this year. I'm quite a fan of Apple in general, and so I'm surprised at my utter lack of satisfaction with the Time Capsule.
After all, it promised so much!
- 1TB (or 500 MB) of network-attached storage
- 802.11n base station for blazing fast wireless connectivity (with compatible computers)
- Gigabit ethernet ports to help you establish or expand a blazing-fast wired network
- Seamless setup process, not with a clumsy web interface, but using the Apple AirPort setup tool
- USB port for sharing additional drives or printers
After a week of working with this beautiful looking device, I have decided not to keep it. How did the promises stack up?
CAPACITY (1 TB of storage): yes, it has nearly this much storage space available. Nice big drive.
WIRELESS (802.11n base station for blazing fast wireless connectivity): I was not able to make this work after a reasonable amount of futzing. I expect a few phone calls with Apple support might have solved this, but it wasn't a priority given the other problems I had with the unit.
PERFORMANCE (Gigabit ethernet ports): yes, I was able to connect it to my gigabit network. But the fastest I could get data from it was 25 megabytes per second. This is respectable, but the three-year old home-built Linux server in my garage is 40% faster. Much worse, my write speed test maxed out at 9 megabytes per second (merely a quarter as fast as my garage server), which should give you pause if you're hoping to use this device as a backup tool.
EASE OF USE: The setup and updating process was not entirely seamless, but I have to admit that the Apple configuration tool is decent. Unless you are running Windows or Linux, that is: Windows users have to install the Apple AirPort Utility, and I don't think Linux users have any option (forget them, they're probably building FreeNAS servers anyway!).
EXPANDABILITY (USB port for sharing additional drives or printers): This turned into a major disappointment: USB drives have to be formatted for Mac only, with a single partition, on a Mac, before connecting to the Time Capsule. There's no way to set up any kind of access control on USB-connected drives; it's all-or-nothing. Multiple drives can theoretically be connected to one Time Capsule using a USB hub, but if it's not a powered hub, expect trouble. Taken together, these difficulties killed my enthusiasm for this product.
RELIABILITY: I didn't mention this as an initial promise, because it's natural to expect that a product will be reliable. The device runs quite hot (unavoidable given Apple's preference for ultra-quiet equipment), and I expect this to dramatically shorten the life of the drive. Additionally, during the past week I have had to reset my Time Capsule many times, and I experienced several very weird behaviors from my computer while working with the Time Capsule, which I am--fairly or not--blaming on Apple. No doubt some of the reliability problems I experienced were caused by my trying to get the very most out of the unit, but a broken promise is a broken promise.
For this price, if you need all (or most) of the features I listed above, this product seems like a slam dunk. My experience was that the promises didn't come true.
There are surprisingly few alternatives at this price point. You can opt for a USB/Firewire external drive like this fine specimen from Western Digital, but it's not network attached. You can try the entry-level Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives from Linksys, but it lacks gigabit speed and appears to have speed and reliability issues. Ditto the higher-end Linksys product. Netgear makes a promising product, but it's more expensive and doesn't include wireless. Drobo looks neat, but it's also priced higher (drives sold separately, and you need an extra module for networked storage).
So when you look at what Apple's Time Capsule is competing with, it's not hard to be tempted by the shiny logo and all those promises. But if you are counting on using this product to its fullest, you may find it was too good to be true after all.
Customer Review: Need more patch(es) to make this product work
Summary: 1 Stars
I have been using the time capsule for a few days and can never get this thing to work properly. The first back up of 16 GB takes forever (more than 2 days) and it finally crashed the computer. After updating the new firmware, the time capsule cannot restart properly. Since the update nothing works at all even after several resets. I can no long connect to the time capsule.
In replacement unit works fine for storing regular files and only work after updating the new firmware. However, the time machine can never successfully backup mac book air and eventually crash the operating system despite a few attempt of 1GB of backup data. The successful back up on a regular mac book worked properly for a few days and was unable to mount after that. I need to perform many workarounds to get this thing to work again.
pro:
- wireless backup
- straight forward setup user interface
- high speed file transfer
- nice package design
- good customer support
con:
- no easy way to migrate the old time machine backup data to the time capsule
- unreliable when using it with the time machine
- can freeze the entire operating system when trying to backup the data
- slow time machine backup speed
- need to install apple software on the window PC to enable file and printer sharing function over LAN
- fail to remount the backup drive after a few days of usage
- has computer naming issue
- expensive
Wireless backup is a very good idea if Apple can make it works more than 95% of the time. I do not recommend this product to anyone at this point until Apple release a newer stable version. This current time capsule has proven to be unreliable and you will spend more time fixing it than enjoy using it.
Customer Review: Poor performance and not worth the expense
Summary: 1 Stars
Like most of you I buy Apple products because of the simple reason that they just work. No hassle. No fuss. Just plug and play. I use them in my office, at home, and always recommend Apple products to my friends, family, and clients.
Therefore, I don't take it lightly when I recommend that you DONT purchase Time Capsule. Unlike Apple's other wireless devices, Time Capsule just doesn't work the way it was intended. Yes, it will back up your computer; and yes it will provide wireless coverage in your house. However, when the device is backing up, it makes browsing the web or downloading email nearly impossible. There is "hang time" in which the browser or Mail will time out. I can't begin to tell you how frustrated you will become when in the middle of doing research or need to get to your email that you will be thwarted by that little clock in the menu bar going in reverse.
Life becomes even more complicated if you own a non-apple wireless device, such as the Logitech Squeezebox. The two just don't play well together, and what should be a great music enhancing device gets "sabotaged" by Time Capsule's inability to sync properly.
As much as I love Apple, this is one product I recommend you think twice about (I have never actually wanted to throw something against the wall before I used this device). If you are in need of wireless connectivity, buy the Airport Extreme--it works incredibly well, never cuts out, and supports third party devices.
Hope this helps.