Apple Time Capsule

The Apple Time Capsule is a hardware device distributed and manufactured by Apple that interacts with Apple’s Time Machine backup software on Mac OS X Leopard systems. It’s basicly an external hard drive with a wireless switch and server, which allows all Mac computers available in the local wireless network to connect to the Time Capsule and keep updated backups of all of them separately.

By having the backup device within the local wireless network, backups can be performed without consuming Internet bandwidth or causing traffic jams in the local network.

Apple’s Time Capsule is available with 1 Tb and 2 Tb of storage capacity, however if you need more space, you can always stack more than one Time Capsule’s within the same network.

The wireless connectivity of Apple’s Time Capsule uses the newly introduced 802.11n standard which allows greater speeds than traditional 802.11b/g devices. Also, it’s capable of working on both bands at the same time, which means that if you have older devices that use the 2.4 Ghz band and new devices that use the 5 Ghz band, they can all connect to the Time Capsule using the fastest speed available for each device.

The Time Capsule also performs well as a wireless access point, so that you can share your Internet connection without compomising the security of your local network and you can even use it as a wireless print server, which will allow you to print wirelessly from Windows and Mac computers. The Time Capsule is compatible with all wi-fi devices including iPhones, Ipods and laptop computers.

The USB port in the Time Capsule allows you to even connect another hard drive and share it wirelessly, even though it won’t work with Time Machine as a backup location, it can be used as a file server for your network.

If you have a MobileMe account, you can register your Time Capsule and access your files through the Internet, all you need is a MobileMe account, a Time Capsule and a Mac Computer running Mac OS X Leopard. Once activated in your MobileMe account, the Time Capsule will show in the sidebar of Mac’s Finder just as any other connected device.

Setting up the Time Capsule couldn’t be easier, it just takes a few clicks and you’ll be backing up all your files in no time.

Even though it’s not specified in the product specifications, our best guess is that it works on an incremental mode, as it says that the first backup can take up to 24 hours, but further backups are performed in real time.