And today in our laboratory we have another model of a "fruit" manufacturer - Apple Time Capsule. Despite the fact that its main feature can be considered the presence of a built-in hard drive, in reality, the Apple Time Capsule cannot be considered a classic network drive, since the “time capsule” is also capable of performing all the functions of a wireless router, like the AirPort Extreme.
Delivery set and appearance
The packaging of the device is even larger than that of the previous generation Mac mini - 23 × 23 × 10 centimeters. Therefore, despite being similar in size to the junior representative of Apple desktop PCs, the box protects the Time Capsule more reliably during transportation.
Judging by the front of the package, the Time Capsule is positioned as a hard drive with an 802.11n wireless interface. On the one hand, this is, of course, true, but from the point of view of the capabilities of the device, the characteristic is clearly not complete. In Russian, there is only a small sticker that already correctly describes the technical characteristics of the model. The package includes a drive, a power cable, an installation guide (in Russian) and a warranty card. No programs or network cables are provided.
In appearance, the device is very similar to the AirPort Extreme, but noticeably larger. Another difference is the mirrored company logo on the top cover. The case is white glossy plastic. Its dimensions are 19.7 × 19.7 × 3.7 cm, projected to be the same as the latest Mac mini, but the radius of the “rounding” of the corners is smaller than that of the computer. On the front side there is a multifunctional indicator, along the contour - a ventilation slot, on the back - all the connectors. Here you can find the power cable input (the power supply is built into the device), a USB 2.0 port, four gigabit network ports (one WAN and three LAN) with indicators, a hidden reset button, a Kensington lock.
Despite the outer case made of plastic, the device is quite heavy, its weight is more than one and a half kilograms. At the bottom of the drive is a rubber gasket that securely holds the model on any surface.
Design and hardware characteristics
The device is very similar to the AirPort Extreme and its stuffing. A 3TB Western Digital WD30EZRS hard drive is hidden inside the plastic case (in this model, there are also modifications for 2TB). It is connected via the SATA interface, has a 64 MB buffer and belongs to the "green" series with low power consumption (according to the manufacturer - up to 6 W). Everything else is almost the same as the router: Marvell 6281 processor, 256 MB (AirPort has half as much) RAM and 16 MB flash, Marvell 88E6350R switch, BCM94331 dual-band wireless controller on the PCI Express 1x bus. Network and USB controllers are built into the main processor.
Due to the presence of a hard drive, the case of the device has grown noticeably, so they decided to place the power supply inside. We also note the cooling system - a large aluminum radiator of a special shape for large microcircuits and a small fan for the hard drive. It is quite difficult to understand exactly how the air flows. However, it is clearly not worth closing the ventilation grilles present on the case. The fan operation algorithm completely turns it off if the disk temperature is up to 50 degrees (for verification, a separate remote sensor is used, and not built into the hard drive). Further, the speed of operation increases with increasing temperature, but even in this case, the noise level is relatively low.
The device was tested with firmware version 7.5.2.
Assembly and setup
In this case, the user has nothing to collect - just connect the power cable and, optionally, a network cable. The Time Capsule is configured using a special program that is available in versions for Mac OS X (built into the OS) and Windows (you need to download it from the Apple website). In the first case, the Russian version of the interface is also provided.
Providing access to the built-in hard drive, Time Capsule can work as a router, an extension of an existing wireless network, an access point, a wireless client. In the latter case, you can place the Apple Time Capsule anywhere without being tied to network wires, which is interesting enough. Although, of course, you need to understand that the speed of working with a disk will be significantly less than with wires.
The device completely repeats the capabilities of the recently reviewed AirPort Extreme for working with networks, so we will not dwell on this in detail here. Interested readers may refer to past material. We will describe only a few differences in the interface of the setup program associated with the presence of a built-in hard drive.
Access to shared folders is provided via the SMB/CIFS and AFP protocols. Of course, there is support for the proprietary Time Machine backup program. The network interfaces of the device are represented by a gigabit port and dual-band 802.11n with a speed of up to 300 Mbps (2T2R).
For the built-in hard drive, the system checks the SMART status and allows you to additionally perform two operations - deleting data and backing up to an external drive. Erasing information can be useful if you plan to give the drive to another user. Moreover, in addition to the quick option for cleaning the directory, there are also three options guaranteed from recovery, including a 35-fold overwriting of data. Of course, this operation, especially on a 3 TB hard drive, will take a significant amount of time to complete. Data archiving can be useful in terms of improving the reliability of document storage. The speed of copying to an HFS+ USB drive in our case was about 20 MB/s. Archiving starts only in manual mode; during its operation, reconfiguration / reboot of the device is not possible. All contents of the internal hard drive are copied, including shared user folders. A small problem is that after this operation, you can only access the backup from the computer, but not through the Time Capsule itself, since the data is copied to the root of the external volume.
Recall that the network access settings allow you to select one of the access control options - by a common password for the device / disk or by a user name and an individual password (the user database will need to be created in the drive itself). Using the second option with external hard drives leads to the fact that a new directory (“Shared”) is automatically created on the volume for general access and individual folders for each user. In this case, you will not have access to the files previously placed on the disk (unless you transfer them to one of the new folders). User rights are issued from the usual "read and write" or "read only" list. It is possible to set guest rights and provide access to disks from the WAN port.
To safely disconnect USB drives or turn off the device, it is advisable to first disconnect all users from network resources through the setup program by clicking the appropriate button.
As you can see, the storage capabilities of the device correspond to standard network drives and are quite sufficient for ordinary home users or small workgroups, but they lag far behind most "real" network drives.
External devices
The USB port can be used to connect external drives and printers that will be available over the network. It is allowed to use a USB hub to increase the number of simultaneously working devices. The drives support FAT32 and HFS file systems and multiple partitions. Access rights to resources are configured similarly to the built-in disk - for each user, there can only be access to all volumes at once.
All-in-ones only work in print mode. Communication with printers is traditionally one-way.
Additional features and enhancements
Of the additional options for working with the drive, we note only support for the Mobile Me service, which allows you to get remote access to documents. True, it should be noted that the service itself is now in a state of transformation and registration of new users is not possible. At the moment, the device is completely closed from modifications; there are no possibilities for installing additional programs or utilities in it. Unusually, there are no media services that Apple loves so much.
Router performance
Since the model in question has antennas that are physically different from the AirPort Extreme, it was interesting to see how this affected the speed of operation in wireless access point mode. We did not use the full set of adapters for testing, but compared only the two most productive ones.
It is difficult to choose a clear winner, but in most configurations with a Mac, Time Capsule turned out to be more productive. With the second participant, not everything is so simple - the numbers for the frequency of 2.4 GHz have grown, but for 5 GHz they have decreased.
The speed of operation in wired router mode is practically the same as its predecessor, as can be seen from the second graph.
NAS performance
We measured performance in two programs - the traditional Intel NASPT and the Disk Speed Test utility from Blackmagic Desktop Video. The second of them is interesting in that it is available in versions for Windows and Mac OS, which will allow us to check the work in a profile use case. The NASPT test we've been using for a long time failed to pass all the tests, tripping over a couple of templates with a large number of files. It is difficult to say how this will affect the real work of users, but the sign is not very good. On the other hand, it's still synthetic. The graph shows the results of measuring the speed of work with a built-in disk and an external one with two file systems - HFS + and FAT32.
By modern standards, the numbers are not very high. Even the youngest NAS models today show noticeably more figures. It seems that for Windows PC users, this model is not very suitable.
Disk Speed Test can be downloaded for free from the website of the video capture equipment manufacturer. The program is used to quickly determine the capabilities of the disk system, which is very important in the tasks of recording and playing unpacked video. The operation to measure the speed is a sequential read and write of a 5 GB file. Unfortunately, the results are not very stable, so for definiteness we took the numbers of the fifth run of the test. Operation under Mac OS X was tested on a 2010 Mac mini with a wired network connection. Moreover, both available options for connecting a network resource were considered - using the proprietary AFP protocol and inherited from Windows - SMB / CIFS.
It can be seen that the proprietary AFP protocol for accessing files over the network is noticeably faster than SMB. The latter shows almost the same results for different operating systems on the client, and, most likely, its speed is limited precisely by the implementation in the Time Capsule.
If you try to evaluate the results as a whole, then, of course, today the figures of about 30 MB / s are unambiguously small, even when compared with budget network drives. Working with AFP under Mac OS X is slightly better, but even here recording at a speed of 40 MB / s will require more than three and a half hours to save a full 500 GB disk, which is quite a lot. Using the Time Machine backup program somewhat corrects the situation, since not all data is copied, but only what has changed.
With a high-performance NAS from one of the leaders in the market at hand, we used the Disk Speed Test to test its performance with a Mac. The results showed that for the AFP protocol, writes are carried out at a speed of about 64 MB / s, and reading can be slightly faster than 80 MB / s. So it turns out that for Mac users, the considered branded device is not so far behind the alternatives.
conclusions
Like AirPort Extreme, the device reviewed today includes a modern wireless router capable of operating simultaneously in two 802.11n standard bands at once. At the same time, the Wi-Fi speed of the Time Capsule is very high and, with good adapters on the client side, is up to 100 Mbps at 2.4 GHz and 125-200 Mbps at 5 GHz. Support for guest wireless networks also looks interesting. If we talk about the possibilities of providing Internet access, then this model may not be suitable for a domestic user - it only supports direct connection and PPPoE, which may not be enough. Routing speed in direct connection mode is very high and is on par with the best home-level models.
The Time Capsule has a large internal hard drive (2 or 3 TB) that allows you to use the device as a simple NAS to store the data of network users. The speed of work over the SMB protocol and with Windows clients is not very high and does not exceed 30 MB/s. At the same time, if you have a Mac, then you can use the proprietary network access protocol for this OS and get higher numbers.
The presence of a USB port allows you to expand the disk capacity with external hard drives, but you must be prepared to use the HFS file system for them, which can be difficult for Windows users to implement.
There are no additional services typical for modern network drives in this model.
Let's not forget that the Time Capsule is very well made and the style matches other Apple products. This device can be recommended to users of Apple products who need a fast access point and / or a large capacity external network drive for storing archives and backups. If you're using a Windows PC, then it might be more interesting to use the AirPort Extreme in combination with an external USB drive. At least in terms of speed, you won't lose anything.
Reflections on the topic of how to simply and reliably store important data, for sure, have visited every owner of electronic equipment more than once. Of course, the masters of modern service centers sometimes work real miracles and fish out information from completely “killed” devices. However, we all understand that one day it may not be possible to extract photos, important notes and contacts, a graduation project or an annual report from a “flying” device. At this point, it will be irrevocably too late to think about the safety and protection of data. Therefore, let's think about this topic in advance, preventing similar losses in the future.
What do owners of electronic devices expect from data loss prevention operations? First of all, completeness and ease of recovery in case of unforeseen situations. As well as a simple algorithm for saving data. Ideally, if the operation will be performed automatically, without constant actions from the user.
Some may think that the solution is elementary, it is not in vain that flash drives and removable media with huge space for storing files were invented. But not everything is so simple. Human forgetfulness, the vulnerability of the devices themselves - these are the factors that will nullify all your efforts. After all, it is enough to forget once to throw off the necessary document, fill the external hard drive with water or lose it - and you will be left without valuable information.
Is there a way out? Yes, Apple's Time Capsule will solve your problem.
Apple Time Capsule is a mechanism to which a network cable with the Internet is connected, which then begins to be distributed throughout the room. It is important that the created Wi-Fi network allows access to the hard drive with files. The time capsule works like this: via a wireless connection, you drop the document onto the hard disk of the capsule, after which the file becomes available to all gadgets connected to this wireless Internet. Now you can use it directly in your Apple Time Capsule or download it to your PC or laptop.
Time Capsule will be even more useful if you have an Apple laptop at home, the operating system of which has the Time Machine function. In a nutshell, this program itself monitors data changes on the computer and automatically duplicates them on the device selected in advance. Thus, you do not need to spend time every evening writing new files to backup devices. However, if necessary, you can roll back this system a couple of steps back, returning to the state of the files that you want to see. So, if in a hurry or in a hurry you deleted the necessary information, select the day preceding the deletion and restore the system to this date. A couple of clicks - and the necessary files are with you again.
In a word, it is easy to exclude the loss of the necessary information from your life once and for all. First: get an Apple Time Capsule. Second: we turn it on at home, connecting it to power and the Internet. Third: we go from the MacBook Pro or Apple Mac to set up Time Capsule and Time Machine to back up data when changes are made.
Do not be afraid of the failure of the Apple Time Capsule. The device is distinguished by the high quality of the materials used and the reliability of the assembly. There are very few cases when the capsule needs to be repaired, and most of them are just the usual settings. With the most severe damage, the hard drive breaks, but such a breakdown is easily repaired at the service center, where, at the same time, you can be supplied with a component with great storage capabilities. Sometimes such an "expansion" of memory is required, since standard Time Capsule often have no more than 1 terabyte available, when home computers are equipped with 2 or more. It's better to stock your Time Capsule with more than enough storage space than a little less space. So, if, for example, on a laptop you can save a terabyte of information and additionally use an external hard drive of 750 gigabytes, then 2 terabytes in the Time Capsule is what you need. This volume guarantees the safety of the entire amount of data.
Any owner of a MacBook or other model sooner or later has a problem: where to throw off the information accumulated on the hard drive, because it is not "rubber". One of the solutions to this issue may be the use of Time Capsule.
For example, let's say you have a MacBook Air with only 64 GB of SSD storage, and every megabyte is worth its weight in gold. Of course, in this case, a portable external drive will do, but its possibilities are not unlimited, and carrying a “suitcase with batteries” with you everywhere is not very convenient. And if you have more than one computer, or several people want to exchange files in you at the same time?
Anticipating this situation, three years ago, engineers from Cupertino developed a universal device called the Time Capsule. The name itself alludes to one of the important features of Mac OS X - using Time Machine to back up data. Now it is this device that is fighting for the “living space” on your Mac. And not only.
What is a Time Capsule? In fact, this is an Apple Airport Extreme access point with support for Wi-Fi technology (according to modern standards, in particular, 802.11n 2.0) and at the same time a wireless data storage with a built-in hard drive from 0.5 to 2 Terabytes.
In addition to conventional Macs, Time Capsule allows you to connect to iPhone, iPod, Apple TV and other computers and devices equipped with Wi-Fi in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. The price of a "time capsule" (in the US) ranges from $300 to $500, depending on the size of the hard drive.
And she's worth her money. With the help of this device, dozens of users (including Windows users), without being “attached” to wires and freely moving within the coverage area of a Wi-Fi network (while their system files are unobtrusively backed up), can simultaneously exchange data, print documents through connected to Time Capsule printers, watch movies, listen to music and even play online games.
It's decided. We buy
We take out from the package a small elegant box made of milky-white plastic weighing about one and a half kilograms with a cherished apple on the lid. The rubber tray is striking, allowing the new 2TB Time Capsule to be extremely quiet, avoiding vibrations. There is a wide range of ports on the rear panel of the device: Gigabit Ethernet WAN, three Gigabit Ethernet LAN and one USB. This configuration allows you to set up your Time Capsule in router mode and connect various printers or external drives to it.
The station is securely protected by encryption protocols - Wi-Fi Protected Access ™ (WPA / WPA2), wireless access (WEP) with the ability to configure 40-bit and 128-bit encryption from tampering and allows, among other things, to “bind” access to MAC addresses of each machine and time limit of each communication session. Onboard Time Capsule: NAT, DHCP, PPPoE, VPN passthrough (IPSec, PPTP and L2TP), DNS Proxy, SNMP, IPv6 support.
Through the euro-adapter we connect the power cable. Everything is simple. A yellow light flashed on the front panel of the indicator - the station is preparing to launch, then green. So the Time Capsule is ready to go. It remains to enter the settings for accessing wireless network users. After that, the blue eye may glow for a while (standby mode). And green again. Now Time Capsule has launched "to the fullest."
Setting up a Wi-Fi base station
According to Apple's recommendations, we assign the Time Capsule as a wireless base station. Since this device has the capabilities of an AirPort Extreme with Wi-Fi access, it can immediately be configured as a main base station, and not a network client. This allows you to achieve high performance and avoid sudden jumps in speed during the backup process. Using an Ethernet cable, we connect a cable / ADSL modem (broadband) to the WAN port. We are looking for and launching from the section / Programs / Utilities / AirPort Utility.
Select the device name, for example, "Time Capsule c3d536" and click "Continue". Then we mark the item "Create a new wireless network" and again "Continue". Follow the instructions that appear and wait for the Time Capsule to reboot. Now all settings will take effect.
Debugging PPPoE and VPN
After launching the AirPort utility, select the name of the Time Capsule and say "Manual setup". Go to the "Internet" tab. If the connection is made using the PPPoE protocol, then select "connect via PPPoE". Now it is enough to drive in the login and password provided by the provider.
For a VPN connection, also open the AirPort (wireless network) tab. As in the first case, we create it following the recommendations. Here you can also assign a name to your network and assign it a password using the Wireless Security menu. Now owners of other devices on your network, such as iPad or iPhone, can use this password.
Other connections
Additional AirPort sections assign access to printers. (For Mac OS X version 10.5, go to System Preferences/Print & Fax and add the desired printer.) In the "More" section, you can get statistics or do port forwarding by entering your MobileMe details for the "Access My Mac" feature to work remotely.
Set up Time Capsule Disk Sharing
In the AirPort-Utility/Time Capsule menu, set the station name and password, and then on the "Disks" tab, set the access rights to the Time Capsule disk files.
Click "Update" and wait for the device to reboot. (Windows users need to disable 128-bit encryption when setting up a connection.) Now the Time Capsule image will appear on the user monitors in the Finder and you can safely get rid of the overabundance of accumulated files by sending them to the new “mini-server”.
Launching Time Machine
We turn on Time Machine in the "Settings Panel", and it automatically detects the Time Capsule on the network. Spending a few hours on the first backup will protect you and your colleagues or friends from all sorts of crashes and rushes associated with data loss. Further, Time Capsule will automatically, in a matter of minutes, copy only the changed data.
Time Capsule has a lot of possibilities. Let's give some examples.
Watch movies on iPad online
Many use the Time Capsule as their home media library and stream videos directly to the big screen, but what about the iPad? It turns out that he can also pick up files from the Time Capsule using the program. It's only $3 on the App Store.
Before you can see the files on the remote drive of the Time Capsule, you will need to make a few settings. First, you must have Wi-Fi turned on. The first time you open FileBrowser, you need to click on the plus icon that appears. In the connection settings window that appears, you need to enter any drive name, for example, “TC”, its IP address, user name and password. Perhaps additional settings / Advanced Settings are needed, for example? MAC address of your iPad. Read the hints (unfortunately, only in English).
If everything went well, you should see a directory on the Time Capsule with your favorite movies in iPad-readable formats, for example, .mp4 with H.264 codec. Now it is enough to "click" on your favorite name.
You can also listen to music, say .mp3.
We limit the session time for guests
Using the binding to the MAC address, you can limit the time for guest access, for example, a client of your company who only needs to "throw" a couple of logos from his laptop onto the Time Capsule. By default, network access is limited to a session of 24 hours. But by adjusting the settings in the AirPort Utility, you can cut the access time to your NAS by, say, twenty minutes.
We “treat” the disk of the Time Capsule itself
Apple acknowledges that there may be some issues with AirPort Extreme (prior to 2009), AirPort Extreme (Base Station/802.11n), AirPort Extreme (Simultaneous Dual-Band II), Time Capsule (prior to 2009).
To avoid possible errors, it is necessary to periodically refresh the versions of AirPort Utility and the firmware of Time Capsule devices through the "Software Update". However, you absolutely cannot use the Mac OS X Disk Utility to clean, verify, or repair your Time Capsule drive. After updating the programs and firmware, restart the device.
During boot, Time Capsule will automatically check the file system structure of the internal disk and fix problems. If there is something wrong with the disc, the Time Capsule's LED will blink amber. Then, using the same AirPort Utility, you can check the S.M.A.R.T. status of the disk.
But our new model Time Capsule 2TB MC344, fortunately, does not have these problems, and no one interferes, having made the necessary settings, to arrange a real wireless “disco” right now.
Early last week Apple released AirPort utilities and firmware for its wireless devices that support the 802.11n specification. In addition to general fixes, AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule have learned to provide remote access to disks using an iCloud account. Today I'll show you how to set up this feature, since some readers have not been able to do it.
Initial data
For experiments and writing instructions, I got a "purebred American" - a brand new fifth generation AirPort Extreme wireless access point (model MD031LL / A), which supports 802.11 a / b / g / n specifications, simultaneous operation of two Wi-Fi frequency bands (2, 4GHz and 5GHz), multiple protocols and encryption algorithm.
In addition, you must have a Mac computer with Internet access, an updated AirPort 6.0 Utility, and the latest firmware (7.6.1) on the wireless gadget itself.
The external drive is connected to the AirPort Extreme's USB port.
Setting
Setup begins by opening AirPort Utility, located in the Applications > Utilities directory. Since the AirPort Extreme I tested was brand new, I installed a software update on it - thankfully, it's very easy to do, with just a few clicks.
Once the firmware is installed and the Apple Hotspot is connected to the Internet (two green lights will indicate this), you will need to select the AirPort Extreme in the Utility and click on the "Change" button to view additional settings.
On the first tab "Base. station." (I would tear my hands off for such localization) click on the add button (1). Next, in the window that appears, enter the login and password for your iCloud account (2), click on the "Login" button and wait until the status indicator turns green - this means that you have accepted your Apple ID and are ready for further configuration.
Now go to the last tab "Disks", set the checkbox "Allow file sharing" and assign the type of protection for shared drives. Three options are available to you, you can choose any of them, but I settled on the default option - “With device password”.
Once you've done that, click the "Update" button. And while the AirPort Express settings are being applied, let's move on to setting up the Mac computer: in System Preferences > iCloud, check the box next to "Access my Mac". It will take no more than a minute to activate the component.
Almost everything is ready, but now how to access the disk? To do this, just open the window, select our device in the "Sharing" category in the sidebar, after which it will be mounted to the system to any other share.
Now that's all for sure! You will be able to access files stored in your home from your work or any other Mac computer associated with your account. However, it is worth remembering that the connection speed depends entirely on your Internet connection. Naturally, the instruction is also suitable for the Time Capsule.
By the way, I almost forgot to thank you for the AirPort Extreme provided for experiments.