Apple Time Capsule

Spending time making something you hope you’ll never need is a pretty pointless activity, which is probably why so few people bother backing up their computer. Dedicating time each day or week solely to copying files from one computer to another is indeed a chore, but it’s also an unnecessary one – as evidenced by the wholly automatic (not to mention wireless) operation of the Apple Time Capsule.

The Time Capsule is a high-capacity network-attached storage device that's been combined with the features of its older brother, the AirPort Extreme Base Station. So, along with a 500Gb or 1Tb storage capacity, it’s also a Gigabit Ethernet router with draft-n wireless networking, as well as a printer hub.

Rather than using fans, Apple’s sleek white casing dissipates heat generated by the drive. It gets moderately warm when put through it’s paces, but never worryingly so. A faint whine emanates from the drive when it spins up, though it’s not particularly distracting when sat within earshot.

At the back of the case are four Gigabit Ethernet ports, along with a USB port through which a printer or external hard drive can be shared across the network. Naturally, Macs get to see these shared devices straight away, while other Windows users can download Bonjour if they don’t want to install the Apple AirPort Utility or iTunes (which includes Bonjour).

Although seamless support for OS X’s Time Machine is a big selling point for Mac users, the drive can also be used as a regular NAS to store files, allowing laptop users with any operating system to retain access to all of their documents when moving around.

All of the networking features can be used by Mac and Windows users alike, and the Time Capsule’s Time Machine functions replicated both with Vista’s Backup and Restore Center and the equivalent wizard in XP. These can be used to back up the whole system or just selected folders, and support complete, incremental and differential backups. In some regards, Windows’ backup features are more flexible than Apple’s , since they allow you to tailor how often they run – Time Machine runs every hour except, unless the Time Capsule is out of range or you cancel a backup.

Mac users do benefit from a few extra touches, most notably the Time Machine interface that presents a stack of Finder windows that go back chronologically, allowing previous hard drive states to be browsed. Other OS X applications are integrated into this too, such as Address Book and entering Time Machine with it open allows old entries to be found using the same interface.

If there’s any sort of problem with the Time Capsule, the large status light on its front face flashes amber. Firing up the bundled AirPort Utility (supplied for both Mac OS X and Windows) shows a status page with a clear description of the issue and, if it’s related to the configuration, it points you toward the relevant settings. This is very helpful for anyone that seldom tinkers with network settings and of all the settings are neatly grouped into five distinct categories, with each further divided into feature-specific tabs. The Mac version of the application also has a browser-like search box that shows a live list of results as keywords are typed.

Less user-friendly is the fact that even such simple changes as adding a new MAC address to the list of allowed wireless clients requires a brief restart of the Time Capsule. This interrupts connections both on the local network and over the internet, and while some applications will cope , it interrupted a download during our tests.

Access to the Time Capsule’s drive can be limited using the Time Capsule’s administration password for a single-user environment, a separate disk password with space shared by all users, or with individual user accounts to keep them separate (though there’s no provision for disk quotas). User accounts are also applied to external drives as well, though more for convenience than security – an external drive’s contents can be read simply by connecting it to another computer.

The first Time Machine backup takes a long time, though how long obviously depends on the amount of data you’re backing up. We ran it wirelessly over an Apple PowerBook’s 802.11g wireless connection with no other network traffic. In five hours, only 10Gb of 60Gb was backed up. Apple recommends running the first backup over a direct, cabled connection, but even a recent iMac took a few hours to back up around 100Gb in this way.

Thankfully, subsequent backups are much quicker and wireless backups proceed largely unnoticed in the background, provided you haven’t made changes that affect several gigabytes’ worth of files. The real joy of Time Machine is that it’s enabled in a couple of steps – just turn it on in the System Preferences and point it at the Time Capsule.

Once past this initial stage, laptops can roam without losing their ability to be backed up automatically – a chore that’s all too easy to ignore, otherwise. Once configured, it doesn’t impose any changes in behaviour since the process works silently in the background so long as the Capsule is on and within range. The ability to separate files by user account also encourages an entire household to make backups.

The router functions, wireless printer support and the ability to add more storage make a strong enough package, though the lack of tools to check drive integrity detract from this. Still, Time Capsule offers a convenient way for Mac and Windows users to keep make a first backup of data without the regime becoming an intrusive nuisance, and the ability to separate files by user account should encourage entire households to safeguard their files.