Time capsule how does it work

The fact that it uses a 3. The device requires AirPort Utility, available as both a desktop software application Windows and Mac and a mobile app iOS for its initial setup and ongoing management. Using this software, the device can be quickly set up in just a few simple steps. This is mostly because the networking device is rigid and relatively lacking in terms of what it has to offer.

Seamless combination: A Wi-Fi router and a network storage server At its core, the Time Capsule is a true dual-band router, offering Wi-Fi coverage on both 2. This means it supports all existing Wi-Fi clients, regardless of their standards and platforms. As a high-end product, the new networking device supports the current top tier three-stream of the new For existing Wireless-N Note that these are the ceiling speeds of the respective standards.

In real-world use, the actual sustained Wi-Fi speeds fluctuate a great deal and are generally much lower than the cap speeds. Nonetheless, the support for higher tiers always means faster speeds.

Read more about Wi-Fi standards here. In addition, the Time Capsule also comes with internal storage that can be used to host Time Machine backup files or as a shared folder for connected devices. That said, the device can work both as a Wi-Fi router and a NAS server simultaneously, and for the most part it works well. Unfortunately, it's very limited in terms of features and customization in either of those roles. A powerful but rigid dual-band Wi-Fi router As a Wi-Fi router, the Time Capsule is fixed in what it can do, and it lacks certain customization options that are available in almost all other routers on the market -- even those costing just half its price.

For example, guest networking -- a feature that allows for creating an isolated Wi-Fi network for guests -- is available only on the 2. You can reserve IP addresses for connected clients so that they have the same IP each time they are connected , but this process is very complicated and involves typing in the client's MAC address. It would be much easier to be able to quickly add a connected client to this list.

This is similar to the process required when you want to control the access of a client. Again you have to type in its MAC address, which is generally difficult to find.

There's no way to set up Web filtering, in case you want to block a certain Web sites or keywords. You can't customize QoS or firewall services, either, and this means it's not possible to manually prioritize Internet traffic for certain applications, such as media streaming or online gaming. Overall, if you simply want to share data, back up using Time Machine, and access the Internet, as a router the new AirPort Time Capsule works well.

Those wanting more, however, might find its lack of flexibility frustrating. You can set this up with just a few clicks, and after that backups are automatic and require no interaction from users. With up to 3TB of storage space, you can easily backup multiple Macs without worrying about running out of memory. And when you do, you can archive the backups to an external hard drive, then wipe the Time Capsule and start over from the beginning.

Unfortunately, you can't use the external drive itself directly as the destination for Time Machine backup, but just for archive and data sharing. And if the Time Capsule hardware or the drive died, you could not swap that drive out without a lot of fuss. Then Apple stopped making new ones years ago and finally admitted it canceled the line earlier this year. This column was prompted by Macworld reader Neil, who relies on a Time Capsule at his small business, and has an expanding workforce.

When a backup is not underway, the menu shows the date and time of the latest backup. Backup is underway Latest backup Learn more Time Machine automatically makes hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for all previous months. The oldest backups are deleted when your backup disk is full. The first backup might take a long time , but you can continue using your Mac while a backup is underway.

Time Machine backs up only the files that changed since the previous backup, so future backups will be faster. To stop excluding an item, such as an external hard drive, select the item and click the remove — button.

If you back up to multiple disks, you can press and hold the Option key, then choose Browse Other Backup Disks from the Time Machine menu. Learn about other ways to back up and restore files. Question: Q: How does Time Capsule work? More Less. Communities Get Support. Sign in Sign in Sign in corporate. Browse Search.

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