[bigtuboflard]

I've been looking at options to back up my slightly ageing Macbook Pro, and also to serve as additional storage space for music, films and GoPro footage. I thought initially that a 2TB Apple Time Capsule would be ideal, but researching a bit more its clear that it isn't really intended to be used as a network drive, just as a wifi base station and backup device.

Does anyone have any thoughts as to tying to use it for network storage as well? I am presuming you could partition the drive for that purpose (though that itself is at the limits of my technical capabilities), or would I be best just looking for some more generic external drive approach?

[underground]

I got a HP Proliant N54L for £108 recently which has a £30 cash back offer from HP if you buy during September. It replaces a N40L that I killed by tinkering too much.

I ran it with a fairly low capacity HDD as primary with WHS 2011 as the OS, and 2 1TB drives in RAID for the data. Any data like photos etc. I then backed up to Crashplan Central for about £3/month which from harsh experience is well worth the cost as their customer service is amazing. I also ran Serviio as the media server.

Basically the whole thing was really fast, never missed a beat until I broke it.

[bigtuboflard]

Cheers Underground, I'll take a look at that as an option. Sounds a lot cheaper too than the Apple option. I read online that basically the Time Capsule is basically a Western Digital HDD anyway so you are mostly paying for a nice box for it to sit in

[underground]

http://www.serversplus.com/servers/tower_servers/hp_tower_servers/744900-421

[Snoops]

Ive got the 2tb TC. I use it as a wireless station, and for the time machine wireless backup. I have a external hdd connected to that, with my music etc on, so you can access it wirelessly without having to plug in and out of your mac. Not the cheapest way of doing it for sure, but time machine is pretty useful.

[bigtuboflard]

Cheers Underground for the link.

Snoops, I did think that might be an option. How do you link the HDD to the TC? Is it via USB or lightning bolt thing?

[Jaspersharpe]

I read online that basically the Time Capsule is basically a Western Digital HDD anyway so you are mostly paying for a nice box for it to sit in

That's a surprise.

I'm actually amazed that underground hasn't bought three of them!

[Sloper]

Spreader ear pieces, fixed wheel bikes, beards, 'individual tattoos' tweeds, crap digital watches, is there anything I've missed

[Snoops]

Cheers Underground for the link.

Snoops, I did think that might be an option. How do you link the HDD to the TC? Is it via USB or lightning bolt thing?

Mine is connected via usb to the tc. U can access it wirelessly via finder, works pretty quick, and as I mentioned u can just leave it all alone then.

[bigtuboflard]

Cheers Underground for the link.

Snoops, I did think that might be an option. How do you link the HDD to the TC? Is it via USB or lightning bolt thing?

Mine is connected via usb to the tc. U can access it wirelessly via finder, works pretty quick, and as I mentioned u can just leave it all alone then.

OK great. will check bank account for funds and see if I can persuade myself its worth the investment. Failing that I will probably go for either the HP type option or just a simple portable HDD to drop files on which I don't need that often.

[bigtuboflard]

Spreader ear pieces, fixed wheel bikes, beards, 'individual tattoos' tweeds, crap digital watches, is there anything I've missed

Drinks served in jam jars?

[Jaspersharpe]

Spreader ear pieces, fixed wheel bikes, beards, 'individual tattoos' tweeds, crap digital watches, is there anything I've missed

Drinks served in jam jars?

Top knots and half mast trousers worn with espadrilles?

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

Think there's another thread on the benefits of NAS boxes from the likes of QNAP or Synology...

There's some info here...http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php?topic=15314.0

Might cost a bit more than a TC but depending on the model could give you benefits such as RAID1 (mirrored drives),  a web interface, media server/streaming server, backup of multiple devices etc etc.

eg. http://www.ebuyer.com/583693-qnap-ts-212p-2-bay-desktop-nas-ts-212p (need to add two drives to this price)

[tomtom]

Spreader ear pieces, fixed wheel bikes, beards, 'individual tattoos' tweeds, crap digital watches, is there anything I've missed

Drinks served in jam jars?

Top knots and half mast trousers worn with espadrilles?

Manbags...