My Time Capsule Experience Thus Far
Posted March 31st, 2008 @ 07:01pm by Erik J. Barzeski
In two words: not good.
My first attempt to back up my MacBook pro (~115 GB of data) failed for some unknown reason about 30 GB in. My second backup attempt failed much more quickly and for unknown reasons.
My third attempt progressed at a rate of about 1.5 GB/hour (on an 802.11N network) - yeah, a single backup was going to take almost 80 hours. I have no idea why it was going to take so long, but about 50 hours in, the house lost power and the backup failed. The next "first" backup was going to be 115 GB again, so instead I erased the Time Capsule and re-started the backup manually.
It's running along at a faster clip now - it started shortly before I began writing this entry and it's surpassed 1 GB already, so perhaps this one will go to completion by tomorrow morning.
Donate Life
Posted 01 Apr 2008 at 7:17pm #
First backup over the wire is a lot less painful...
Posted 01 Apr 2008 at 7:46pm #
Indeed. Almost all the reviews I've read have suggested doing the first backup with the Time Capsule and the target machine connected to the network via ethernet, then moving to wireless after that, at which point only incremental backups would be needed.
Posted 01 Apr 2008 at 8:12pm #
[quote comment="46933"]First backup over the wire is a lot less painful...[/quote]
I've since erased the disk once again and plugged it in physically. Here's to hoping this method goes a lot more smoothly.
Posted 01 Apr 2008 at 8:46pm #
I guess that is the key thing. Do the first backup via ethernet.
Wireless is always going to be a little more flakey due to interference issues (microwaves, telephones, etc.).
Posted 02 Apr 2008 at 9:15am #
I had similar problems getting rolling with backing up to my AirPort Extreme with a connected USB HD... I think Apple still has some bugs to iron out with wireless backup. Once you get the first backup done, it works fairly reliably, although I would suggest modifying your Time Machine preferences not to backup every 1 hour, as doing this over wireless usually ends up meaning that you spend a third of your day performing backups!
Good luck.
Posted 02 Apr 2008 at 4:52pm #
My experience is nearly a perfect one.
Connected on my home gigabit network, internal drive erased, MacBook Pro on wired network too, the first backup took roughly 5 or 6 hours for 120 Gb copied. It's a Time Capsule 500 Gb, with the backup made on the internal hard drive.
Now, I've hooked 3 external hard drives and a printer on the Time Capsule and everything work really well.
It's pretty easy to find better hardware for much improved network and storage performance. But certainly not at the same price level and not as easy to setup and use.
It just works, it all that count for me.