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This is a really neat piece of kit. Bought to back up a couple of Macs in our house, it's simple and works exactly as advertised. It's a reliable wireless base station, the hard drive features are perfect and the built-in gigabit switch works excellently. The transfer speed (around 20MB/s at best) isn't as fast as copying to a drive in a server (which can be 57MB/s or better on gigabit ethernet), but is more than sufficient for the way Time Machine works.

For users in the UK, the PPPoE features are probably useless (as most providers of ADSL in the UK use PPPoA), but this means that the WAN port can be used as a fourth gigabit switch port, which is perfect for me. Also, the hard drive spins down after a delay, meaning you're not burning power and wearing out the drive when not needed.

Finally, the new AirPort Express can extend the 802.11n network to improve coverage. I never had any luck getting WDS to work on older devices, but this new method is very easy indeed.

This is simply the best Mac accessory product I have ever bought.

It has worked flawlessly, set up in 6 minutes (really!) and was surfing AND backing up wirelessly immediately, all over the house on my three macs and my iPhone--I always try to overload and really work my new Mac equipment so if it goes bust or doesn't work the way I want, then it is still under warranty.

I have a BT home hub that stopped sending its wireless signal, but still had a great internet connection over an ethernet cable, so I needed an airport or other wifi device to send a signal to my computers. Most good router/wifi hubs are around £110, so I thought this is a bargain including the 500GB backup for my multiple Macs. I simply unpacked it, connected the Time Capsule to the ethernet cable on my BT Home Hub, ran the install software (configuring it to run using the ISP supplied addresses) and BANG, in three of four clicks it was up and running!

I thought--NO way, nothing is this easy, I must be on a neighbors unsecured Wifi signal, surely I am going to have to call BT in India and work though system preferences for 6 hours, but no, I was using the Time Capsule as a wifi hub straight away! Back up is easy--takes a good few hours the first time and then is unnoticeable, great machine, highly recommended.

(3 of 3 people found this review useful)

. . . I want to be an Apple product!

As with all the other offerings from Apple, this is a fantastically designed product. I brought it home, plugged it in, connected to it, and it worked. Seamlessly with my MAC, PC, phone, fridge, and lawnmower..... Gawd I love Apple!!!!

(1 of 1 people found this review useful)

I set this up in no time and it worked flawlessly. The setup assistant seemed quite straightforward. Connected via ethernet to a BT homehub, it has extended my wireless range and all of our macs, iphone and PC connect to it without any problems. Did the first backup with a MacBook directly linked via an ethernet cable and airport switched off as I can't imagine it would be a quick process to transfer 190Gb over wireless. Took a couple of hours and has backed up regularly since.

Does everything it claims to. What more can you ask for?

(32 of 33 people found this review useful)

I use this as a backup device, hidden away in the loft and on the WiFi network provided by a separate router. For this it works fine and I would recommend it as an invisible backup system requiring no user attention in normal use.

I had hoped to use it as a router. Two problems: 1) it doesn't have ADSL internally (normal in the UK, as most ISPs do PPPoA). 2) I was able to get a Vigor 100 modem and PPPoE/PPPoA bridge, then use this to connect to the Internet. That worked fine, but if you set the Time Capsule for PPPoE, it forces you to use NAT to share a single public IP address. I have a /28 (i.e. 16 public IP addresses) and so couldn't use it as a router - I have used this configuration with another router combined with the Vigor 100.

If this doesn't mean much to you, don't worry about the second problem as it won't affect you. However the first problem (lack of internal ADSL support) means that I would only recommend this as a router for cable users in the UK, not ADSL. As a backup device, I am completely satisfied.

(33 of 41 people found this review useful)

i just got the 500gb time capsule to day and i just have to say is it works. printer/internet/iphone/psp/ps3 and backup for mac/win all in one place.
one down side to it is the first time you backup it gettes very hot.

(20 of 23 people found this review useful)

Only had this a couple of days but seems an excellent piece of kit. Backing up my files no problem and using the internet through it. It took a couple of hours for me to get it all set up as i'm not the best with these things. I phoned support and got first class help....wish i'd phoned them earlier.

Only down side is the price!!!!

(4 of 4 people found this review useful)

Bought one of these thinking it was going to solve pretty much all my dilemmas of a home network.
Initially went through setting it up on my mac (thinking being an Apple product this would be best) got to then end, said everything was successful, till i tried connecting to the internet, nothing, tried then going back to check the settings on my mac, didn't find the TC, tried with my macbook, still no go, i then refereed to my pc, it actually found the TC (strange).
Needless to say i'm not using it, which is unfortunate because it is a great idea but for me a complete waste of time; no internet connection and neither of my macs could see it wired or wireless.

(9 of 23 people found this review useful)