So ... what makes the Hitachi HD "Server Grade" (which is one of the main selling points of time machin).

(and no its not THE selling point but at least it gets advertised a lot)

...this is exactly why YOU'RE (not your, damnit) allowed nice things!

why all the hoopla about apples junk..?

trying to appease the small user base of Mac users?

In case anyone is curious,
the hard drive
I agree, there's nothing "Server Grade" about this hard drive. Looking at the various Hitachi drives at the right, this seems to be faster than a couple of the others but the hard drive isn't the bottleneck, it's the network connection. One of the CinemaStar seems more appropriate: quieter and lower power.
The 1Tb DeskStar costs about $300 and the 500Gb costs about $150. Assuming you don't need a Terrabyte for Time Machine and you were going to partition it anyway (assuming you could), an external 500Gb would be a better deal.

eww, the infamous hitachi deathstar

@akmarksman: Ya, really! Gizmodo hardly ever covers Apple products. It's so weird how this one snuck in there! Man, I hope this doesn't happen again.

Luckily, I'm the type who gets excited to plug in new gadgets upon arrival, and I don't feel like I need to open them up until they die. Which I do.

@akmarksman: I believe last giz had a poll about mac vs pc users on here, there were almost 50/50 in viewers.

So let me get this straight. Nakedmac is not allowed to have nice things. Nakedmac has Apple's Time Capsule. So, Apple's Time Capsule is not a nice thing. Right?

@akmarksman:

Because unlike MS, Dell, HP, etc etc Apple are innovating with new products and new ways of doing things.

If the PC companies had an original idea between them, I'm sure it would get a mention here...

Summing up: Time capsule = NAS + wifi + app goodness?

@MINI Driver: "Apple are innovating with new products and new ways of doing things" ........

You mean like cramming one 1 USB port in a close to $3K "world's thinnest lappie" with no ethernet port? You better redefined your definition of "new products and new ways of doing things" very well....so other readers in here can better understand.

@MINI Driver: It's a freakin glorified NAS. Stop trying to tout it like it's something revolutionary.

@Palestina:

yep. IMO airport extreme base station is VERY expensive, but time machine I think is worth it. I deal with people who don't backup their stuff on a daily basis, so to recommend this is kind of a no-brainer (that, and the demographic I work in could care less about the cost). Yes I am a hypocrite (every other word out of my mouth seems to be "backup", even though I don't do it personally), but getting an all in one solution for $130 more than an AEBS is totally worth it.

I wonder how long it will be until OWC start selling larger hard drives for this thing.

@maxshanly:

dude...1TB is ginormous. I actually shudder at the though of using a terabyte of space myself. I don't think you'll need to worry about replacing the drive in a time machine unless the internal one dies and is out of warranty (oh wait...it's a deatstar drive, nevermind)

@discounteggroll:

I know but still, someone is bound to want more space.

whats the point of backing up to an external drive if that drive is also prone to failure just like any other hard drive?

because having something backed up (even on another drive prone to failure) allows some redundancy, it less probable that both drives fail at the same time. (well unless you get hit by a bolt of lighting, or the house burns down, then you're screwed.)

What, you don't have any proofreaders working on Saturday?

@Haroon: "be sure to drop anything we have missed in the comments"

There is no "whilst." This is highly unusual and disturbing, since every time you post you manage to include a "whilst," which I interpret as some kind of secret code from you to the world that all is well. However, since there is no "whilst" in this one, I am wondering if someone has kidnapped you, given you the obligatory strip down, and this is your way of asking us to mobilize our forces and rescue you?

@discounteggroll: But...but...it has an Apple logo. That makes it alllll better!

:D

I'm holding a sign. It says "Will Grammar Check For Food."

@MINI Driver: You should look into Windows Home Server (WHS). I will await the much needed functional improvements to Time Capsule, so that I can see how Apple will "innovate" with their product line.

but will the time capsule bland?

On the PC side, NAS implementation typically includes some sort of redundancy features .... If it's true security you're after, that's the route. There are a slew of auto-backup progs for cheap that you can use with any additional single internal/external hard drive configuration in the PC world.

I think ANY movement Apple makes towards a wider user-supported backup is a good thing, though. Given the ubiquity of computer use for the the most important to the most mundane of chores ... it should be as painless a process as possible. This new implementation of Time Machine & hardware appears to be a vast improvement over its flawed beginnings. That's also a good thing.

I would be curious to understand how the fan functions with any efficiency in that space. Its hard to tell from the photos, but where is it drawing cool air, and expelling warm air? That would worry me tremendously re: the longevity of the drive (my AE gets warm enough as it is w/o a drive to boot - no pun intended).

@maxshanly: I would be that someone if this fit my needs (I don't need this to be NAS device for my setup) - graphic designer with loads of large print jobs to back up...

That said, I absolutely agree with b00st3d, another hard drive is just a ticking time bomb like all hard drives. But until online backups get larger, more convenient, and bandwidth speeds become greater, there are not many other alternatives (other than burning discs, yuck).

back up to bluray discs!

i dont think tht fan is used to cool the hard disk!its used to cool the chipset and processor!though without any vent i fail to see how the hell is it supposed to cool the thing without any cool air supply!
putting a heat sink would have been much more efficient than a fan without any air to circulate!

Any way to run a DLNA media server off this thing?

@nidinp: Good point... Although assuming that it is using the same chipset as the normal AE for WiFi, why would it need a fan? Is the processor to manage the hard drive really going to create that much additional heat (think about your regular external USB or Firewire hard drives). Still, I agree, how is that fan doing anything? Confused...

@b00st3d: True enough, but even 25 to 50GB per Bluray disc is still a pain as a regular backup routine for a terabyte of data...

The drive says Apple HDD Firmware. What is that? What is different from regular Deskstar firmware?

I'm happy Apple finally started offering their own backup solution.

The device itself is a great start, and I'm sure Apple has invested the right time and effort making sure this integrates well with devices.

But a single disk scares me, a single hitachi disk scares me even more, and a petite backup device that potentially gets lugged around with a user during travel where they think they're 'doing the right thing' is... well you get my drift.

@BoinK:

So there's another single product out that that does all of this out of the box?

Didn't think so - that's why it's call INNOVATION

Just because you live in a compromised, grey box world, where nothing quite works together, and you need to buy 3 pieces of 3rd party software, and search for drivers, just to get close to the out of the box features provided here, doesn't mean we all want to live that way.

Hey, but I can understand that stuff like this really pisses you off - Apple just keep on knocking it out of the park.

@mr_oshodi:

Of course, you can call the laptop market better than Apple - I should have known.

What word beating computing product are you launching Q1 '08 prey tell?

you can put the damn thing up yer butt you gonna keep complainin like that.....don't make me pull this car over!

@DaIntellectual:

I wouldn't have WHS in my house!

I noted that ComputerWorld had to publish a five page 'problem resolution' guide for WHS, just to get people to be able to configure the thing!

[www.computerworld.com]

Compare that to the plug and play for Time Capsule.

LMMacAO!

Can someone explain the benefits of this device over just getting a Windows Home Server? From what I understand, WHS has fully compatibility with Mac's 'time machine' function and has about 10x's more functionality of this, including a form of RAID to protect files.

Given that it's just a standard SATA drive inside this thing I wonder how difficult it would be to attach an external eSATA RAID box (like this: [www.newegg.com]) and use that as a more robust backup/NAS solution. I guess the biggest difficulty would be formatting the RAID enclosure properly if the Time Machine expects it to be formatted before it recognizes it.

@mrsteve007: Except WHS has file corruption issues that hasn't been addressed yet, which is a big no-no for a file server. But I dunno how well Time Capsule will behave.

@madcow3417: That's exactly my thought process. I do a weekly backup of my two computers on a 500GB external that I found at CompUSA for $120.

It's fairly painless, as I just recopy the same folders to overwrite any changes I've made.

@MINI Driver

Why, what world beating computing product did Apple launch in Q1 2008?

And Time Machine is nice. Hardly revolutionary but still nice.

@Sleeper_Service:

You've been living in your mom's basement playing dungeons and dragons for too long...

Suggest you read the archives on Gizmodo - you'll get the picture on what's passed you by so far this year.

Just search for Apple - that'll get you started...

@MINI Driver: MS=software..

@MINI Driver

I've actually been living in your mom's bed. It's handy whilst she makes my dinner.

I'm slightly gutted that I bought a regular Airport Extreme & separate 500GB backup drive 1 week before this product was announced. Having to remember to plug in the USB drive into my laptop for backups is a pain & this wireless solution would have been much better.

However, I am somewhat placated by the fact that the Airport is easily the best router I've owned (& I've had at least 10 in the past) The range is good (I get full strength throughout my apartment, on the balcony & even in the street) & the setup utility is a no brainer.