MacLife - UK (2020-04)

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OF 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 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 no effort whatsoever.

Starting at $299, the initial capacities of

500GB or 1TB would suffice for up to

four typical contemporary systems.

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.

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’t marketed 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

NEXT ISSUE ON SALE

MAR 31

RANDOM APPLE MEMORY

Time Capsule

Adam Banks remembers the Apple accessory that made protecting

your content as easy as plugging your Mac into the wall

RAM

98 APR 2020 maclife.com

The first generation Time

Capsule came with four

Ethernet ports (1x WAN)

and one USB port.