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O
F ALL THE activities your Mac
enables, backing up your files is
not the most obviously enthralling.
Yet backup was first on the bill when Steve
Jobs delivered his San Francisco Expo
keynote in January 2008. Introduced as a
“Back-up Appliance” for Mac OS X’s Time
Machine software, Time Capsule was
a version of the AirPort Extreme router
with a hard drive built in.
Not only did this combined tech leverage
wireless networking, then a novel concept
and a headline-grabbing selling point, but it
allowed one or even several Macs to be backed
up with absolutely no effort whatsoever.
Starting at £199, the initial capacities of
500GB or 1TB would suffice for up to four
typical contemporary systems.
Eyebrows were raised at Jobs’ claim that
Time Capsule featured a “server-grade hard
drive”. Although the Seagate Barracuda and
Hitachi Deskstar disks installed weren’tmarketed as such, their specs arguably
justified the description. But cooling is a
major factor in the longevity of hard drives,
and the AirPort’s compact slab offered little air
flow. As it turned out, however, it was another
component that compromised reliability, with
power supply failures in an early batch of units
provoking a free upgrade program in 2010.
Generally, however, Time Capsule proved
a popular way to achieve something that all too
many home and small office users had simply
found too much hassle to bother with. In 2013,
a fifth-generation redesign, renamed AirPort
Time Capsule, brought a new pillar-shaped
case, with options now ranging up to 3TB.
But that year was the last to see updates to
any AirPort product, and in April 2018 the
demise of the range was made official.
Today, while Time Machine is still included
with every Mac and uniquely easy to use, non-
Apple storage hardware – whether wired or
wireless – is required to make it work.Time Capsule
106 | MACFORMAT | APRIL 2020
RANDOM APPLE MEMORY
Adam Banks remembers the Apple accessory that made protecting
your content as easy as plugging your Mac into the wall
The first generation Time
Capsule came with four
Ethernet ports (1x WAN)
and one USB port.NEXT ISSUE ON SALE
7 APR