Time Capsule - 2 TB

Reviews for Time Capsule - 2 TB

Customer Reviews and Ratings

3.0 out of 5 stars

Based on 376 reviews

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Apple continues its downward slide

    • Written by from los angeles

    We had the original 1TB for 4 years and never experienced a single problem. As soon as we got the new 2TB version, we've had nothing but problems with it. Our home is suddenly full of "dead zones" where there were none before, and we've been unable to complete full backups. We've had network techs come to the house, they could not offer a solution. Based on the reviews here mainly being 1-star "didn't work" or 4-5 stars "worked great," I would guess there is a very high rate of "lemons" with this product. Well, that's what you get when you manufacture in China I guess. I'm looking very forward to moving away from Apple products completely, it seems each new iteration is more problematic than the last.

    1 of 3 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Works like a Charm

    • Written by from Big Island

    Some serious negatives on this site. This device works and works very well.
    Nothing to set up as long as it can see the Mac it works. I use mine for 3 Macs without a Hitch.Been going strong for at least a Year, Mates well with the Wild Blue Excede Sat system

    6 of 7 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Not impressed with Time Capsule

    • Written by from Colorado Springs

    I am a long time Apple fan and user; but I have to say I am very disappointed in the Time Capsule for the following reasons:
    1. The initial backup of my MacBook Pro, with 151GB of data on the HD, took almost 3 days using the wireless. In all fairness, Apple says it will take longer for the initial backup if you choose to do it over wireless; but in comparison, it only took 4 hours to do an initial Time Machine backup with a plugged in portable hard drive.
    2. I wanted to replace my existing Airport Express (which is being used to connect a Vonage box to my existing network) with the built-in router in the Time Capsule (essentially an Airport Extreme). It turns out the Ethernet ports on the back are deactivated when you "join" an existing wireless network (unlike the Airport Express).
    3. In order to activate the Ethernet ports you have to "extend" an existing network with the Time Capsule. But Apple doesn't let you extend from a non-Apple wireless router.

    A big disappointment that Apple put those limitations into the Time Capsule when the Airport Express has no such limitations. Returning it tomorrow :(

    61 of 78 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Great Product...

    • Written by from Gram

    It is working smoothly now after 3 years, and I can say all my family are very statisfied, so I don't understand all the negative response….

    6 of 6 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Happy thus far

    • Written by from Weybridge

    Bought the 2TB to replace my WD 1TB which have given up the ghost and I must say has lived up to expectations.

    Installation was simple, straight forward even with bridged to current Sky router. All very smooth and up in running in minutes. Switched over all other WiFi devices to new Time Capsule and all is very well.

    Seems to have solved issues I was having with Sky WiFi as well which is a bonus indeed!

    4 of 4 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Absolute nightmare to set up

    • Written by from London

    I am fairly experienced in IT and the setup of this was a nightmare, I received lots of error messages upon set up and had to spend a fair amount of time searching the internet for help. This is not the 'apple' experience you would expect.

    10 of 23 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Great product while it lasts......

    • Written by from cheltenham

    After being easy to setup and quietly backing up photos wirelessly for 18 months my 2TB Time Capsule (cost £249) failed yesterday, with a maximum of only 639GB of space ever having been used :(

    The only hint I had that something might be amiss was a 'parse bundle could not be found' message appeared on my iMac screen. The light on the time capsule changed to amber and in a trice the light went out. Since then nothing, it's completely dead.

    Bought from John Lewis in July 2011 but whereas I thought it had a 2 year guarantee I was told it was just one year.

    I would recommend anyone thinking of buying a time capsule to Google it beforehand! Not to just rely on this site, Which and Amazon, as I did. It seems there are sites where a fair number of users indicate it has an average life span of between 18-22 months.

    Such a disappointment for what was and still looks like a brilliant product; plus at the time I could have purchased a 1TB one for less money but bought the bigger one because I thought it would be more economical in the long run...... I was expecting 4-5 years akin to my Western Digital passport. And yes, I know things will fail but I honestly hadn't expected such a comparatively short time frame.

    8 of 12 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    As Advertised

    • Written by from camlachie

    This installed like a dream and I had to use a backup fairly quickly when I stupidly interrupted a hardware update to the laptop. Worked perfectly. And it has speeded up our wifi network. Ordering one for the office as we speak!

    16 of 20 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    1 Week in can't fault it

    • Written by from Norwich

    Obviously my opinion may change but one week in I really can't fault the Time Capsule. I got a reconditioned 2TB model. Out of the box I simply plugged it into my existing router with a ethernet cable and turned the power on. I didn't have to fiddle around with loads of complicated settings the Time Capsule did it all itself! The dual band wifi is so clever also, My MBPRetina, iPhones and AppleTV running on one band and my housemates computers running on another. No lag at all.

    Can't fault it.

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Excellent

    • Written by from Leighton Buzzard

    Been running this for a year with lots of success and no problems!

    Doubles up as additional WiFi so my iDevices use the Time capsule on 5GHz and other devices use the traditional WiFi at 2.4GHz. Back-ups are great and reliable, also important family pics are backed up on iCloud.
    The file storage is also great for storing backups from additional non-apple OS's , and digital media within the household.

    1 of 1 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Flaky, unreliable--save yourself the grief

    • Written by from Hamilton

    The wireless router part of the time capsule has been very serviceable and speedy. However, its main purpose--as a backup server--is flaky and unreliable. And if a backup is unreliable, it's not a backup, is it? My drive experienced problems 9 months into the first year, which appeared to resolve themselves. But the drive started failing again 3 months after the warranty expired, so I replaced the drive myself (quite the ordeal--thanks for sealing a hot-running device, designers). It seemed to work for awhile, and now it has utterly failed again. The reset button doesn't work, the light stays amber, even though the warranty was barely over and the thing never did work properly.

    Do not purchase Time Capsule!

    35 of 55 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    DO NOT BUY THIS!

    • Written by from Richmond

    My iMac was one that had a Seagate hard drive recall. Bought the Time Capsule albatross. Difficult to set up. Took 3 tries before it worked properly...or so I thought. After the hard drive was replaced in my iMac, some of the applications loaded properly but none of my personal files loaded. No help from Apple. My files are supposedly locked in file vault. The File Vault was turned off when the backup occurred so no one has a clue why they are locked in File Vault. Bottom line is: I lost more than 6,000 pictures, 1800 songs, all of my medical files, tax data and years of personal data. APPLE WAS NOT HELPFUL AT ALL. I had a gut feeling before buying this product but because it was "Apple" I didn't go with my gut. Lesson learned.

    45 of 76 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Great Stuff

    • Written by from warrington

    Fantastic! definitely buy one of these things if you wish to speed up your Internet or to back up a mac and to share hard drives. Great Product

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Not the usual Apple slickness

    • Written by

    Initially I connected this to my existing wireless router by ethernet, and used it in bridge mode with all the wifi transmitter off. This worked for a couple of days, but then had intermittent problems with the network disk not showing up on computers. The only way I could get it to work reliably was to use it as the wireless access point as well, and disable wifi on my existing router. Which is fine, except if the Time Capsule fails I will lose wifi connectivity as well. And on principle, it is supposed to work both ways.

    Connecting a USB disk into it and sharing it is temporamental (could be the USB disk to be fair, but had no problems connected directly to the computer.)

    The Airport Utility has some quirks - I have found certain settings only stick if you change them in a certain order.

    If when you format a disk, you change the volume name to something other than the default "data", it has a nasty habit of reverting the name back to "data" again unexpectedly. This means the computers then have to be pointed to a different backup volume.

    These kinds of issues I expect from cheaper brands. The device essentially works, but paying premium prices for Apple brand, I expect a more polished product.

    4 of 4 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Best Backup System Available for the Layman.

    • Written by from clemmons

    I have had zero issues with my TC. A little research is needed to fully use all of it's capabilities but it along with Apple's Time Machine software is simply wonderful.

    TWO ISSUES: While I haven't had any issues yet, it really should have more ventilation. It definitely gets hot and I can see this being an issue. Also, I think it's been around long enough that Apple could have a thunderbolt port available now. This would speed up backups considerably as well as keep the unit from working so hard (thereby keeping the temp at a more appropriate level).

    NOTES: While it's a great backup system, I recommend having an external/portable backup system as well. I use time machine on a 2TB external once a month and keep it stored in my firesafe. If someone were to rob you or god forbid your house burns down- the backup system would be pretty useless.

    22 of 23 people found this useful

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  • 3.0 out of 5 stars

    Terrific unless you let it overheat, after which it's garbage

    • Written by from Burnaby

    The pros:
    - Easy to set up
    - Makes backing up your information completely automatic

    The con, and it's a big one:
    - The physical design of the enclosure, for some reason, covers the entire ventilation grid and fan output with a thick impermeable rubber "foot." As a result, the unit overheats very easily, and once it has overheated badly even once, it will act flaky from then on: "Unable to complete backup" with any of about 20 different random errors on every backup attempt (could not mount drive, network issue, permissions issue, could not find time capsule, unknown error, etc, etc, etc). If you buy one of these, once you've turned it on to make sure it works in general, you need to unplug it again and 1) permanently remove the rubber foot from the bottom and 2) set the unit on top of some kind of mesh riser to allow airflow through the bottom of the unit.

    From a software perspective, it's still one of the best Apple backup solutions out there, but the enclosure design is laughably problematic.

    46 of 48 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Temperamental fro me

    • Written by from Davenport

    Every few months I get a message from the time capsule advising "Time Machine completed a verification of your backups on “xxxx”. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you." It destroys all the previous back ups and starts over... again. Why it has 2 TB is beyond me as it never seems to use but 500GB. I'm going back to WD, reliable and without wasting another 7-8 hours every few months to get a simple back up done. I have no idea what I have lost trusting this thing. But the last time it did this was 12/11/2012. By March 2013, it wants to do it again.

    25 of 28 people found this useful

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    Too unstable to be a backup solution

    • Written by from Waterloo

    DO NOT BUY!

    I use the Time Capsule as the wireless router and the backup of my MacBook's time machine. For the first month, it gave me constant errors that I had to search internet for solutions. I had to reboot it once every few days. Later on I developed a habit to reboot my Macbook once every few days. That seemed to solve the Time Capsule's problem for a few months. But now, it gave me that trouble again. Rebooting both Time Capsule and my Macbook do not solve the problem.

    Here is the error message:

    The backup disk image “/Volumes/TimeCapsule-1/Bin’s MacBook Pro.sparsebundle” is already in use.

    20 of 30 people found this useful

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Good Product that can be made better !

    • Written by from santa clara

    I have a 2nd generation Time Capsule and wanted to upgrade it to latest 4th gen so bought it. upgrade was worth it though think that its a bit costly.

    When is apple coming up with Time Capsule with USB 3.0 support and internal drive with either hybrid or SSR drives ? Is it gonna be Gen 5 or Gen 6 ? Would definitely upgrade it especially for USB 3.0

    11 of 14 people found this useful

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Flawless

    • Written by from Palatine

    1. This device is super easy to setup. It's almost plug and forget.
    2. It's signal is powerful and goes through 2 floors easily in my house.
    3. It's backup is reliable.
    4. Very fast!!!
    5. Works with IPv6.
    6. Yet another reason why I only buy Apple products.

    21 of 22 people found this useful

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