I do not have a TC so I cannot speak of its abilities but I have given up trying to use my AE plus an external drive as a network backup device for the time being even though now Apple support this function. It is simply too slow to be practical at the moment. I suspect it will work one day in the future when a few more updates occur because the theoretical transfer speeds are simply not there as of yet.

There is nothing like Firewire for external storage. USB is really bad for that compared to USB.

Even at top speed and positioned in a rarified spectrum of bandwidth, 802.11n can't hold a candle to the throughput of a directly connected USB hard drive. Of course, connecting a USB hard drive to perform Time Machine backups is also not a brilliantly convenient setup. Additionally, Time Capsule supports Time Machine backups from multiple Macs; to do the same thing using a directly connected USB drive, you'd have to unplug the drive at regular intervals and attach it to each machine needing to be backed up.

I might be missing something... It wouldn't be the first time! I have a WD MyBook plugged into my Macbook Pro by firewire. My Macbook Pro backs up to it just fine. My wife's Macbook, and the kids' iBook back up to it over the network. I do not have to unplug the drive and attach it to each of their machines.Prior to the Mybook, I used a WD portable USB drive, which also worked fine. I was under the impression that this was the norm if the backup target is running Leopard.

On a similar note, I tried to share the drive from my Sawtooth server running Tiger, and TM did not work.

Steve

See it's just a matter of trade-offs.... For the laptop crew (that's me!), it's a hard sell.... For the desktop crew, it's nonsense! Go wired! I'm using a USB HD connected directly right now for my backups as my TC has yet to ship from amazon (got $75 off the price). I WISH TC wasn't going to be noticeably slower, but... I have also noticed that frequently, my backups (when done hourly) rarely exceed 100MB of change.

So realistically for me and the "everyday user," wireless backups are going to be just fine if they stay on the network for most of the time; TM will be doing hourly syncs and probably far less than 1GB of changes at at time.

I think that's what people need to consider along with these tests; these tests are extreme. Save for the first backup, the whole design is to keep subsequent backups minimal. Realistically, unless you're photoshopping 10-100MB files in an hour, it's probably not going to be a big deal for you. And anyway if you were doing that, you probably have a desktop machine in which case, why aren't you wired in? It's not like you're going anywhere...

Again, I WISH TM & TC would magically work as fast or near as fast as a wired connection. But then again, for the small amount of changes to my HD in that hour between backups, who's going to notice?

I don't think speed or the wall time for performing data protection backups is all that significant for most users. What is significant is the ease of use, ease of understanding and the convenience features that Time Machine offers.

The only time speed might be considered significant is the time it takes for the very first Time Machine backup. This can take many hours and of course depends on just how many GBs is to be backed up. This should be, as Apple post, anticipated and to be done say overnight.

Beyond this first backup the hourly snapshots are a real snap for most users as not too much data has to be backed up. This is where speed isn't significant and hourly snapshots is the repetitive activity for Time Machine.

The Time Capsule does take longer to respond when using the TM browser than for direct attached TM backup disks because the sparse bundle disk image has to be found and mounted. However, this should not be seen as a big deal as using the TM browser isn't something a user does that frequently.

I've now been using the Time Capsule since end of Feb 2008 and use it for backing up my PowerMac G5, my wife's MB Core Duo and my new MBA w/SSD. My wife's MB Core Duo performs its backups over WiFi (AirPort Express 802.11g) to the Time Capsule which is the router hooked to my Comcast cable modem. My MBA when connected via its USB-Ethernet dongle will backup to the Time Capsule via wire otherwise it's done WiFi (802.11n). My PM G5 backs up to the Time Capsule via GbE. It has been working well for me.

There was just once instance my wife's MB Core Duo had an issue. This was Time Machine saying it could not mount the sparse bundle disk image. I was able to resolve this by trying maybe 4 time manually and it has been working solidly ever since. I believe the cause for this was related to there being a Microwave oven in the vicinity of the MB Core Duo as I was able to induce the same failure by turning on the Microwave when Time Machine snapshot initiated. I do find this error to be a problem in as much that I had to manually intervene to resolve the problem. Apple's Time Machine should auto recover from this type of WiFi interference IMO, and I've filed a BR to Apple about this.

All in all, I find the Time Machine and its attached AirDisk to work pretty much as it's advertised to do so and do not find issue with the speed of doing backups.

Incidentally, I tested the Time Machine's full system recovery using the Time Capsule's backup data during the use of the DVD Installer and found it to work without issues. Very nice feature IMO.

I'm using an Apple Extreme base station with a 500 GB external USB2 disk drive attached. The latest Time Machine and Apple Extreme software & firmware updates from Apple have enabled me to configure and run the same as Time Capsule. I've been up and running with WiFi Time Machine backups for about two weeks now. I'm backing up a MacBook Pro, a MacBook, and an iMac. Here are my experiences to date.

First of all, I had a bit of difficulty getting the base station configured to run properly. The firmware update wouldn't install until after I did a hard reset of the base station. After fiddling with the Airport Utility software I finally got it working with my Comcast cable modem. I think an actual Time Capsule would have been easier to get up and running.

I did the initial backups of all three computers over the wireless WiFi network. It took about 20 hours to backup the 130 gigabytes stored on my MacBook Pro. This happened in the background and I was able to use my computer while it was transferring data. If I had it to do over again I would do the initial backup over ethernet and then switch to wireless.

Things have gone very smoothly since the initial backups were completed. I really love this setup. For instance, it is now 9:35 AM here in Houston. I'm clicking on the Time Machine icon in my menu bar and it tells me that my last backup was completed at 9:04 AM today. I never notice that it is running. It's never more than an hour out of date so long as I'm within WiFi range.

Last week I flew to California for several days. Of course, no backups were being made while I was away from my WiFi network. When I returned Time Machine automatically resumed wireless backups. I didn't have to do a thing.

What's so cool about this is that it happens automatically in the background and you are unaware. I have much more current backups than ever before and I don't have to do a thing (once configured). It feels like magic. It's one of the best things in Leopard and I highly recommend it.

There is a much quicker way to do the initial backup. Connect the usb drive to your airport extreme and do a time machine back up excluding just about all files on your internal hard drive. All you want is to create the initial sparcebundle file. Once this backup is complete, you can attach the usb drive directly to your computer and time machine will recognize it. Remove all the excluded files and do a back up again. Time machine will use the sparcebundle file for the back up. Once you finished, reattach your usb drive to the airport extreme.


Glor