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Gizmodo’s first look at Apple’s Time Capsule: Worthwhile, convenient, clean and easy

Apple Online Store“We’ve been fiddling with Time Capsule since it arrived this AM, and so far it works as billed, clean and easy. The star of the show is really the new AirPort Utility software, which now comes with some neat tricks for the network-phobic. Most of all, we’re learning the ins and outs of adding external drives, using networked printers, and setting up that potentially [huge and time-consuming] initial data dump,” Wilson Rothman reports for Gizmodo.

“We’ve actually set up the Time Capsule several different ways already, as the only router in the network, and as an Ethernet-linked node on an existing wireless network. The start-up wizard in AirPort Utility asks you plainly what you want to do, in increasing steps like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. I know some of you don’t need that kind of child’s play, but this kind of thing will even help you when you tell your mom to get one of these and realize you won’t have to do tech support too,” Rothman reports.

“We will continue to test… but in the meantime it’s safe to say that this is a worthwhile product for people who have the money and want the convenience. How often do you refuse to connect the USB to your backup drive because it would hamper your style? How often are you afraid, after a long period of not backing up, of the time it may take you to perform a backup. Those issues go away with Time Capsule,” Rothman reports.

“But there’s a cost, particularly at the 1TB model, which is $200 more than the $300 500GB model. When we ask about this, all we get back is that these are ‘server grade’ drives. Great, thanks, but we’re gonna recommend the 500GB version. If you have 300GB of backup or less you’re covered, and if you have 1TB of backup or more, you’re better off scoring some massive drive or drive array at discount, and plugging it in via USB,” Rothman reports.

Much more, including settings screenshots, here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Grigori” for the heads up.]

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