Original URL: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/02/29/apple_ships_time_capsule/
Apple unearths Time Capsule
Bested by a basestation, 1TB drive and duct tape
Posted in Enterprise, 29th February 2008 01:31 GMT
Free whitepaper – Driving Situational Awareness:
Apple has begun shipping pre-ordered units of its wireless network-attached storage box, Time Capsule [1], this morning.
The device was announced [2] at Macworld last January, and is currently the only really practical way to use Mac OS X Leopard's backup program Time Machine without physically plugging a hard disk into the computer.
Apple must have fired all its photographers back in 2002
A wireless backup option for Time Machine had in fact been an advertised feature leading up to the OS X Leopard release. But all references to the option were mysteriously pulled [3] from Apple's product literature last October.
Time Capsule is essentially composed of an Apple Airport Extreme Basestation Wi-Fi router with a "server grade" hard drive attached. The box has dual-band 802.11n antennas for 2.4GHz or 5GHz frequencies, three Gigabit LAN ports, one Gigabit Ethernet WAN port, and a USB 2.0 port.
The device retails for $300 for a 500GB drive and $499 for a 1TB drive.
By our extremely rough calculations — that's a $43 markup compared to an Airport Extreme, a 1TB drive, and a roll of duct tape. But perhaps we're missing the point.
Barely related bootnote
Speaking of back-up, is it considered ironic if a back-up product site goes down? You'd think they would have some sort of... Well, you know.
Several readers pointed out that EMC's Insignia page [4] was KO'd this morning. We need the grammar police here. That might just be an Alanis Morissette false irony alarm.