My Time Capsule died today (RIP), and I'd love to continue backing up wirelessly to a local device from my MacBook.
What do people currently recommend as the best way to do this?
Since Apple deprecated AFP and discontinued the Time Capsule, I’ve been looking for a simple, plug-and-play NAS something reliable and hassle-free. My experience with NAS devices is limited, so I really just want something dead simple and reliable without tinkering after setup.
I know I could use an external SSD with my Mac, but that’s inconvenient and requires me to remember to back up on a schedule. Modern NAS devices have become overly complex, with servers, Docker apps, and high price tags like Synology and QNAP.
The closest option I’ve found that fits my needs is the Ubiquiti UNAS 2, but even that is around $200 without drives.
Ideally, I want a NAS that can serve as both cloud storage and a Time Machine backup endpoint nothing more. I previously had a WD MyCloud, which was perfect except for the baked in security vulnerabilities.
With storage prices so high right now, I’d love to use the drives I already have: a new 1TB 2.5" SSD and a 1TB 3.5" WD HDD (shucked from my previous NAS) in a simple RAID 0 or RAID 1 configuration. Secure remote access with a mobile app would be a huge bonus.
Is this really a niche ask?
Videos
Apple has stopped selling Time Capsule devices in retail stores and seems to be abandoning wifi routers in general. What wifi+NAS alternatives are you using or would you recommend?
There appears to be a lot of misinformation being spread about Apple's routers. I just checked, and both sizes of Time Capsules are in stock and available for pickup at my local Apple Store. Apple has not announced any discontinuation of the product line.
Synology devices. Best option. Not a cheapest one.
Hey guys,
I have a ton of music and i dont want it on my mac itself, i was wondering if i could buy a hard drive that connects wirelessly to the router and from the router to my mac or even better from the hard drive to my mac directly where i can access my music real fast without having to have it on the mac....
What are my options ?
PS: the reason i want wirelessly is because i dont want any cables around, because i move my mac around a lot
I have a TC from 2010 and need a new one but I've read there are better and cheaper and faster alternatives. Can you recommend any?
Here is what it has to have:
-Support Time Machine
-At least 1TB storage
-Bridge mode with fast wifi, one ethernet input and one ethernet output for my pc (which does not have wifi)
What you read was wrong. No non-apple alternative time-capsule configurations are going to be as seamless and rock solid as the actual thing. The "better cheaper faster" is a short sighted and dysfunctional logic loop that won't net you any actually better alternatives as far as how seamlessly they integrate with your apple devices (especially the airport utility app that sets up the device in seconds) and how rock solid and elegant it is.
Get a refurb 2013 airport extreme and attach an external hard drive to it. You won't save much money.
The 2013 time capsule is the best option. Refurb is around 200
Before anyone replies saying "hurr hasnt been updated since 2013", there really havent been any major technological breakthroughs for mainstream wireless routers since then. They still use wifi ac and gigabit ethernet
http://www.techradar.com/how-to/computing/how-to-make-a-mac-time-capsule-with-the-raspberry-pi-1319989 try this
I need a 4TB+ backup device that can be accessed over the network the way TimeCapsule could be. WD MyCloud seems to be an option that works automatically with Time Machine but they have such bad reviews on Amazon. What are folks here using now that the Time Capsule has been discontinued?
I am trying to set up a simple home NAS that is easy to set up for backups and to transfer files between roommates. The timecapsule seems easy to setup and I can hookup an external harddrive where I can store files, however it is way above my budget. Anyone got a suggestion for an affordable alternative?
Heres what I did (before I got myself a proper NAS)
Do you have an old PC? if not, check places like woot or CL for refurb/used PCs. They dont need to be powerful. Stuff it with drives. If you have budget, get a RAID card. Otherwise, install something like FreeNAS or Amahi and use the inbuilt pooler to manage storage.
Cheap, reliable and I am guessing it would give you much better performance than TimeCapsule.
Have you looked into Synology?
I've got my whole family backing up to one.
I have been using an AirPort Time Capsule (ATC) 2TB to back up, via Time Machine, my MacBook for the past 4 years but it has recently been having a lot of issues so I think I need to replace it. I was planning to buy another ATC but the modern product has a lot of negative reviews on the Apple Store and other google reviews, and it it also seems very expensive at $419AUD. I would like a backup hard drive that I can backup to wirelessly as I am often moving around my house while on the computer and do not want to have to be tied to the desk in order to backup to a usb connected HD.
Has anyone tried an alternative to the ATC that works seamlessly and has been reliable? I saw on an old reddit post from 3 years ago that some users have attached an EHD to their router and back up through that means, but when I researched on google, I saw that this does not work for many using time machine as the backup mechanism. Has anyone managed to get it to work and what EHD are you using for this? I am not sure if other wireless EXH (I know that the ATC has a router to enable this feature but wonder if there are other ways) exist that are suitable for backing up the mac using time capsule, so if you know of any that can, I would appreciate the recommendations. FYI my current router is a Nighthawk X4S D7800 if that is necessary information to answering my questions.
Thanks in advance
I have a WD MyCloud NAS thingy that supports TM backups. It would still need to be wired to a router and I haven’t tried to backup on it yet as my TC still works fine, but for your research purposes it could be a place to start. I’ve plugged another run of the mill EHD in it and it seems to have automatically implemented a RAID 0 setting doubling its storage size.
Hope it helps.
The ASUS router I have supports time machine, I had been using it paired with a 2 TB hard drive to back up all the computers in the house.
I just dusted off my old 2TB AirPort Time Capsule with hopes of using it to backup my phone and MacBook instead of paying for iCloud. News reports suggest this brick is going to be obsolete soon.
Are there other alternatives I can plug into my router and automatically backup my devices when on WiFi? I’m not too technologically savvy so just want something that is low maintenance.
Thanks for any advice.
I've tried to love my Time Capsules, I really have, but they don't seem to be as reliable as they used to be. Sometimes they show up on the network; sometimes they don't. Sometimes they make decent backups; other times, not. I could build ersatz Time Capsules from single-board computers, but is there a better alternative?
CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner) isn't bad, software-wise, but there's still the matter of the destination hardware.
Any thoughts...?
You could get something like a Synology NAS and configure that for backups. It might be a built in option but if it’s not, you can configure Samba to allow time machine backups (like I did). Works great and reliably on my end.
Lots of NAS solutions support Time Machine, including any Mac running High Sierra or later. I've been using UnRaid in addition to my Time Capsule, previously a Drobo attached to my iMac.
Short writeup on the homelab project I just shipped.
Goal: resurrect Time Capsule functionality without buying used Apple hardware or paying for iCloud that doesn't back up the full disk.
Hardware: Raspberry Pi 5 (8 GB) + generic USB 3 NVMe enclosure + gigabit LAN. ~$180 total.
Software: TimeNest, three-container Docker stack. Samba + vfs_fruit for the Time Machine protocol, Avahi for Bonjour, FastAPI admin UI for users and quotas. Multi-arch so the same compose works on a Mac mini, x86 NUC, or the Pi.
Benchmark on a 100 GB first backup: 21 minutes, 79 MB/s sustained.
Repo: https://github.com/momenbasel/timenest MIT, no telemetry, no cloud component. Happy to answer tuning questions.
Mi Time Capsule falló hoy (RIP) y me encantaría continuar realizando copias de seguridad de forma inalámbrica en un dispositivo local desde mi MacBook.
¿Qué recomienda la gente actualmente como la mejor manera de hacer esto?
Obtenga un NAS Synology de uno o dos compartimentos de nivel básico + una unidad Western Digital Red Plus de 3,5" de tamaño suficiente.
No confiaría en un enrutador. El propósito principal de un enrutador es conectar sus dispositivos a Internet. El almacenamiento es una idea de último momento. Deje que el enrutador haga las cosas del enrutador. Obtenga un dispositivo de almacenamiento (NAS) para realizar tareas de almacenamiento.
+1 para Synology (como otros han mencionado aquí)
Per the title, I'd like to upgrade my (quite old) Apple Time Capsule router, which of course backed up my computer wirelessly through Time Machine. Are there any recommendations for a 3rd party product that would essentially perform this same function (WiFi extender plus wireless backup via Time Machine)?
Thanks.
I'm searching for some suggestions on affordable and user-friendly alternatives to Time Capsule/AirPort Extreme for backing up my Mac using Time Machine. The twist is that I already have a Google WiFi router, and I'd like to stick with that.
I've heard about NAS (Network-Attached Storage) as a potential solution, but I need to figure out which is both budget-friendly and easy to set up. Can anyone recommend any NAS options that work well with Google WiFi and are not too complicated to configure?
I'm looking for a solution that provides seamless Time Machine backups over WiFi. Any recommendations? Ideally, I'm looking for something that won't break the bank and won't require a lot of technical expertise to set up and maintain.
Thanks in advance for your insights and advice!
Hi all! Like many others, I'm now searching for a replacement for my Time Capsule, but I'm really a basic user with limited knowledge and understanding. I have a separate router so I only need something that will allow for wireless, automatic back-ups for a household of macs (altogether less than 10 TB max). I have one desktop so I'm fine to have something plugged in there 24/7 if that helps. I've seen suggestions for a Synology NAS but it honestly looks over my head to determine what to buy and how to set it up. Is there a simpler option? Or a very straightforward tutorial that I can follow? Price isn't really a factor, I'm willing to pay for simplicity, reliability, and ease of use. Thank you in advance for any help!