1.Seagate Wireless Mobile Portable Hard Drive Storage 500GB STDC500402 (Red) – Seagate wireless plus.

(I fully expect that I'll have to retire the Mini when this happens, as it's unlikely Apple will have APFS ported back to PPC machines running Leopard. It also means that when my router goes down (which has happened due to bad caps or a borked firmware upgrade), I can swap in a spare emergency router without impairing my ability to access Time Machine backups.Īs for Time Capsule, it's likely that Apple is waiting until APFS is ready to push an update, as the versioning controls in APFS (which do not exist in HFS+) should allow for a much more robust Time Machine setup. I run it headless and connect remotely when I need to do anything to keep it running. The Mini set me back a total of $0, free hand-me-down due to age. It shows up as a standard network share and all of our Macs connect to it automatically when needed for backup. I use an ancient 1st-generation Mac Mini with a 4 TB drive plugged in via FireWire, and let that (rather than the router) handle the backups. The entire thing is a house of cards to begin with, but having an Apple system host the backup means it will work as well as you can expect, regardless of the router. I've seen reports here and there that non-Apple systems can have issues when used as Time Machine backups. The simplest long-term solution for a Time Capsule-type setup is an older Mac with an external backup drive. Put it on reliable hardware, not devices that add it on as an afterthought.

If you have an old Mac, you can turn it into a 'server,' make a shared directory and backup Time Machine(s) to it over the network.īottom line: Backups are important. If you have an old computer you can install FreeNAS on it and basically get the NAS for free.

Like the Synology (I personally use the DS212j at home) It fully supports Time Machine and is designed to be a NAS and functions as such. Instead, get a separate NAS device that supports Time Machine. Relying on a single device that is literally at the edge of your network (meaning it's the security between your internal network and the rest of the WWW (wild wild web), it's risky to store your backups there. Specifically in this case, the protocol(s) the router manufacturer chose to include don't include support for Bonjour. What is incompatible is the NAS functionality of the device. whatever other nonsense they try to jam into an overpriced, but severely under powered, extremely low quality SoC (System on Chip) covered by flashy plastic.What these retail 'routers' actually are is an amalgamation of A router simply routes network traffic (packets) from one network to another. Just to clarify, the term 'router' is incorrect here mostly because it is used incorrectly by manufacturers who sell products in the retail market.Ī router is neither compatible nor incompatible with Time Machine.

Wifi time machine for mac