A couple of months ago yet another AirPort Express Base Station died on me. Since that was the main device sharing out my Internet connection through the house I decided it was time to move up to an Airport Extreme Base Station. I hoped the more powerful Airport Extreme would provide a better signal.
That worked.
Time Machine backups by firewire
When Leopard came along I also cleaned up a 300 Gb external hard drive and used it with Time Machine. That worked too, whenever I plugged the hard drive into my MacBook Pro, adding a fourth cable to the tentacles already hanging off it1.
It all worked, but wasn’t terribly satisfactory.
The backups on my MacBook Pro were erratic because they depended on my remembering to plug in the external drive. My partner didn’t have access to my external hard drive for her backups. And although I’ve been trying to keep my MacBook ‘lean and clean’, it also wasn’t part of a backup strategy.
Wireless backups become possible
Then Apple announced Time Capsule, a single device to provide wireless, and including a hard drive that could handle backups of multiple machines via wireless. Our order went in.
Time Capsule setup
A new 1 Terabyte Time Capsule arrived yesterday. I spent a while reading the included booklet and making screenshots of all the settings for the previous Base Station. I installed the software from the included disc.
Then I carefully plugged in the ethernet cable from the cable modem, followed by the power cord — as per the instructions.
Import the settings from the previous device
I didn’t take careful note of the next steps, but it amounted to the software asking if I wanted to import settings from a previous setup. I selected the settings from my previous base station and was done. We were all set up and working.
The first backup
My partner and I both set our respective copies of Time Machine to back up to the new device and left them to work. I’d seen suggestions to do the first full backup via ethernet. Now I think that may have been a good idea. Backing up the two machines simultaneously via wireless took maybe 18 hours for my partner’s MacBook and almost 24 hours for my MacBook Pro.
It didn’t really matter, as were able to continue using the machines during backup, but if you were in a hurry an ethernet connection would be advisable for that first time. Today in fact I backed up my own MacBook’s Home folder only, via a wired connection. It took around an hour.
Physically the Time Capsule has a surprisingly bigger footprint than the Extreme Base Station. It was extremely easy to set up and seems very easy to use so far. I now have a barely-used Extreme Base Station for sale, and an external hard drive I can turn to another purpose. Any offers for the old Base Station?
1 I regularly use my MacBook Pro with the following attached: power cord, Wacom tablet, Targus Notebook Cooling Chill Mat™.
Popularity: 5% [?]
is jointly authored by Miraz Jordan and Maria Langer.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Maria 03.05.08 at 01:13 59
Oddly enough, I just wrote a blog post asking for Time Machine real life experiences. (When I saw this, I linked to it.)
I like Time Machine purely because it’s something I don’t have to think about to get some backup protection. My backup disk is off in a corner where I don’t have to hear or see it; it powers on and off automatically. It’s just there.
But I’m not sure how much “go back” protection it offers. That’s what I’m trying to discover by asking for reader input.
Bill Eger 03.06.08 at 07:08 47
Leopard 10.5.2 was terribly destructive in my printing trade shop, disabling Adobe CS3, Epson 9800 ColorburstRIP and, curiously, both the Airport and through Apple modem all connections to the internet. After a week with AppleCare where several folks told me it couldn’t be done, a Peer Two support agent walked me through it, using the original Leopard DVD and the menu steps for full delete and replace of the hard drive as of a date chosen. In my case, the day before 10.5.2, of course.
The younger staff at AppleCare had it right. While it seems to work, the fact is some things were set right but not all. Nothing changed in Airport or the dial-up modem. The Epson 9800 wouldn’t work at all and is now being driven by my PC which is working fine, thank you, though there are lingering problems getting Colorburst in gear.
I’ll follow up when and if all is solved.