Apple Time Capsule

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Apple's new Time Capsule is one of only two devices we know of that incorporates both a wireless router and a hard drive into the same product. The other, a year-and-a-half-old router from Asus, offers neither the same high-speed wireless bandwidth nor as much storage capacity as the Time Capsule which comes in 500GB (for S$489 (US$352.08)) and 1TB (for S$788 (US$567.36)) varieties. In its niche the Time Capsule is the most advanced product on the market. Its price is also fair compared with a separate router and network-attached hard drive. Mac owners and the space- or design-conscious should consider the Time Capsule if they're in need of a router upgrade. Windows PC owners should look elsewhere for more advanced storage capabilities, as should anyone who demands fast wireless performance.

Editors' note :

This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some of other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia. Please check directly with your local distributor for details.

Device type: Wireless router with attached hard drive

Network standard: 802.11n, 802.11a/b/g

Bandwidth: 2.4GHz and 5GHz

Operating systems supported: Linux; Mac OS X 10.4 or later (for setup); Windows XP (SP2) or Vista

Security options: WEP; WPA/WPA2; NAT firewalls, MAC address filtering

Features: 3 Gigabit LAN ports; 1 Gigabit WAN port; 1 USB 2.0 port; DHCP support; DDNS

Notable design features: Antenna-less design

Support: One-year warranty; 24-7 toll-free phone support; email support form; FAQs; knowledge base; driver and software downloads

Setup And Ease Of Use

Time Capsule is essentially an Airport Extreme Base Station with a built-in hard drive and an easy-to-use, Mac-only automated backup program. Most of what we said in our review of the original, standalone Airport Extreme Base Station applies to the Time Capsule as far as its networking capabilities is concerned. Both products provide you with a 2.4GHz or 5.0GHz 802.11n wireless network. We are happy to report that we were able to connect an Intel-powered Mac Pro, an iMac G5, a Windows Vista-based HP Pavilion tx2000 laptop, and the Windows XP-based Lenovo X300 laptop to the Time Capsule wirelessly with little trouble. Each system was also able to read and write to the Time Capsule's hard drive.

The design of the Time Capsule is clean and visually appealing, and almost identical to the Airport Extreme Base Station. You still get one indicator lightup front and a row of ports on the back. That's it. Many routers offer an array of blinking status LEDs, but the Time Capsule gives you only a static green light to let you know it's working. The backside provides you with a single Gigabit Ethernet port for a connection to your cable or DSL or LAN connection, three Gigabit ports for hard-wired network devices, and a single USB 2.0 input. There's no power button, but you do get a reset button to restore the factory default settings. The power cable (and it's just a cable, not a brick) plugs directly into the back. We should note that while the Time Capsule is basically silent, the top gets hot, especially when the hard drive is moving a lot of data. Be sure to store it in a well-ventilated area.

Apple made the claim that setting up the Time Capsule to manage your network is easy if you're comfortable with basic networking concepts. If you don't know whether you have a static IP address or you're unfamiliar with abbreviations like PPP and DHCP, you can still probably navigate Time Capsule's handful of setup screens, thanks to mostly clear English descriptions that accompany each option. You initiate the installation by inserting the Time Capsule CD, and from there (on a Mac) it will update your AirPort Utility, and then prompt you to select various options. Windows drivers are also included on the disc.

With your network established, Windows users should be able to see the hard drive in their network folder, and read and write files to it as with any networked storage device. You can set up a password to connect to the drive, although you get no user management interface like that of the HP MediaSmart Server. You can also access the Time Capsule's drive remotely through a .Mac account, which you have to pay for. The HP Server provides you remote access for free, although it's not a router.

Mac users can use the Time Capsule's hard drive for basic storage as well, but they also get more benefit from Time Capsule than the Windows crowd, due to its interface with Leopard's Time Machine feature. Time Machine lets you set automated backups from the Macs on your network directly to the Time Capsule. It took about 2 hours to back up a relatively sparse 21GB of data on a Macbook laptop over a wired Gigabit connection to the Time Capsule. Apple has also preset Time Capsule to perform several backups a day for the first week you set it up, several backups a week after the first day, and then throughout each month, until you run out of drive space. Each backup only saves the information that's changed, so you don't have to do the complete multi-gigabyte data transfer every time. You can also tell Time Machine to back up manually whenever you want.

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