Apple today introduced Time Capsule, a backup appliance that automatically and wirelessly backs up everything on one or more Macs running Leopard, the latest release of Apple’s Mac OS(R) X operating system including the amazing Time Machine automatic backup software. Time Capsule combines an 802.11n base station with a server grade hard disk in one small package. Simply plug it in, then easily set up automatic wireless backup for every Mac in your house to a single Time Capsule with just a few clicks. Time Capsule offers the benefits of a full-featured 802.11n Wi-Fi base station, and comes in two models: a 500 gigabyte model for just $299 and a 1 terabyte model for just $499.
“Bring Time Capsule home, plug it in, click a few buttons on your Macs and voila — all the Macs in your house are being backed up automatically, every hour of every day,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With Time Capsule and Time Machine, all your irreplaceable photos, movies and documents are automatically protected and incredibly easy to retrieve if they are ever lost.”
Built to work seamlessly with Time Machine, Time Capsule lets users wirelessly back up all of the data on their Macs, find lost files and even restore all of their software. In the event a file is lost, users can wirelessly search back through time to find deleted files, applications, photos and other digital media and then instantly restore the file. If it’s ever necessary, Leopard can also easily restore an entire system from the Time Machine backup on Time Capsule.
In addition to being the best way to back up a Mac, Time Capsule is also a full-featured Wi-Fi base station with the latest 802.11n technology. Delivering up to five times the performance and twice the range of 802.11g, 802.11n is built in to Apple’s iMac(R) desktop and the entire Mac notebook line up, including MacBook, MacBook Pro and the new MacBook Air. Time Capsule features a sleek design with a built-in power supply and connections to print wirelessly to a USB printer. With Time Capsule, it’s very easy for users to create a secure, wireless network for up to 50 users and set security restrictions such as Internet access limits for children’s computers.
At $299 for a 500GB model and $499 for a 1TB model and a fully integrated 802.11n AirPort Extreme(R) Base Station, Time Capsule can serve as a backup solution for multiple computers as well as the backbone for a high-speed, 802.11n wireless network, making it effortless and affordable for everyone at home, school or work to protect their digital files.
Additional Time Capsule features include:
• dual-band antennas for 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz frequencies;
• three Gigabit LAN ports;
• one Gigabit Ethernet WAN port;
• one USB 2.0 port;
• Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA/WPA-2), 128-bit WEP encryption; and
• a built-in NAT firewall supporting NAT-PMP for features like Back to My Mac.
Time Capsule will be available in February through the Apple Store, at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of US$299 for a 500GB hard drive and $499 for a 1TB hard drive.
Interesting…but…is THIS why Apple did not include wireless backups in the vanilla version of Time Machine, to avoid competing with their own product? Or will an upgraded version of Time Machine be able to work with airport drives now?
If Apple is not going to let me connect my USB HDD to my new Airport Extreme Base Station, I’m seriously going to be grumpy. All I have is a notebook computer and having to plug that damned thing in every time I want to move is obnoxious as heck. And if they’re going to make me BUY my solution from them then boo on you.
Bummer, I’d rather attach my own storage via FW800 to such a base station. Rather pricey and constraining if you want to expand.
I already own an Airport Extreme.
I don’t want to buy a new one.
Just let me hook up an USB Hard drive to the back of the one I own now.
Don’t be evil Apple.
, do the right thing, update the AEBS Firmware so I can use my USB HD as a Time Machine without forking out another load of £££s on yet another AEBS just cause it has a HD built-in.
Anyone want to buy a 4 month old Airport Extreme?
This is a fuckin’ racket… Apple should be prosecuted under the RICO Act ( Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ).
Sorry, Tommy, I’ve got one, too! Just bought on Black Friday.
I, too, am going to be “seriously grumpy” if I can’t use my own HD on my current AEBS. I’d say that grumpy is an understatement!
Buying Time Capsule would actually make sense to me. I have Airport Express and a 500 Gb external gard drive. I could ditch both of them with Time Capsule and save up some precious desktop space. Not to mention the fact that TC is a rather beautiful piece of hardware.
But, Apple leaving out the option to connect a normal hard drive to AirPort Extreme would be truly evil.
I’ve been holding off buying an 802.11n base station. But I’m also in the market for a 1TB backup drive. This is perfect! Too bad I’ll have to wait until February – the last day of the month I’ll bet.
/and Apple gets another $500 from me. damn addiction.
And one more upside to TC: with it, I could take one gadget with me on the road instead of two (my AirPort Express and the ext. hard drive).
is it just me, or does it seem physically sort of big?
I don’t understand all this Apple is evil stuff. There’s a USB port on the thing. Why can’t you use you connect your USB hard drive to it and tell Time Machine to use that as your backup?
@ Deep Dish
Don’t the old airport extreme boxes also have USB? Can’t you use that as a wireless back up already? Am I missing something?
@Saso
why is it a racket? Because they’ve come up with a way to combine two devices into one?
It really chokes me that Apple advertised wireless back-up to the present Airport Extreme, did not deliver (pulled any mention from the ads), and now is telling me I have to buy ANOTHER device to do my back-ups. I already bought the Extreme and a Hard Drive on their promises!!! Apple is seriously losing my respect as a customer.
Now you know why network backups are disabled for Time Machine…
Here’s the deal: a lot of us bought Airport Extreme base stations that are *supposed* to support an “AirDisk” (this rarely works) and were *supposed* to (according to Apple.com itself!) be compatible with Time Machine. Then Leopard comes out, and Apple backpedals on the wireless Time Machine idea. The AirDisk feature of the Apple Extreme Base Station still doesn’t work, Time Machine support is disabled, and they expect us to buy a new device??? How about fixing the AEBS first!!!
I just bought an Airport Extreme 3 weeks ago. This blows!
Don’t know what problems you guys have, but I have a firewire 400 drive connected to a Mini 1st gen.
My PowerBook connects wireless to the Mini and does its time-machine backups on the firewire drive.
Both running leopard, it’s slow because it’s -g, not -n, but it works…
“Don’t know what problems you guys have”
1. Price
2. Ease of use
3. Paid for Extreme rev N that was advertised to do this but doesn’t.
4. Apple releases a new product without making good on their old promise.
Most likely Apple will enable AirDisk backups via Time Machine with the next Leopard update. In fact, it seems obvious that software problems with Leopard backups via wireless are the reason for the delay until February.
But sure, take the opportunity to whine while you can, about a product that hasn’t yet even been released.
Sorry to hear so many with buyer’s remorse, but I was planning on buying an Extreme, but decided to wait until they got Airdisk working, since there seemed to be a problem with reliability. I’m glad I waited. You can always try to recoup some of your money by selling your old Extreme on ebay or craigslist, and then buy the new one.
@ wannabe (Mr Jobs, that is)
Well, now that YOU have said it, it must surely be the truth. Gosh, I feel so much better now.
The better!
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Whine, whine! >:|
If this is Apple’s only solution to wirelessly backup with time machine , then this is total BS.!!!! I was hoping they would announce this capability with any external drive & not limited to the Modded out Airport Base Station with a hard Drive.
I just got the new Base Station, is apple telling us we need to by time capsule to do wireless TimeMachine backups or am I missing something?
This device isn’t even nessesary, all they had to do was just add the capability to the existing base station, & Mac OS X
( Thats It !!!!). So unfair.
You will notice it is 7.7 inches square like the Apple TV. Apple will unload what they have of current ATV components (note price drop) to saturate the market. think like the game console or printer markets and the killer app. ATV1 can continue to be upgraded over time even after AppleTV 2 is released. Think of a slimmer device akin to the Air so you have a combo Mini/ATV entertainment system with option for DVD or Blueray which can record wirelessly to Tim Capsule or vice versa.
Remember you heard it hear first from MDNs favorite (& only) DPRK leader