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118 Comments
- jrm125, on 10/15/2009, -5/+37I still don't really understand the advantage of this over a typical external hard drive that you back up to. At least not at the price difference.
- CrikeyMike, on 10/14/2009, -3/+24Ticking Time Capsules -- har! No, really. I think this issue points to how Apple users have super high expectations, beyond what even Apple can do (12 months warranty.) The bigger problem is that the gear, such as hard drives, coming out of China just do not last like hardware of past, regardless of Mac or PC. Mac friends have noted how they had older Mac hardware last for years and years and newer stuff failed within two years. The difference is expectations. But Apple has enough padding in its margins for breaking out of the normal warranty for a lemon.
- jrm125, on 10/15/2009, -8/+25It's called Snow Leopard.
- Carpy, on 10/15/2009, -18/+32It's an Apple product. There can't possibly be anything wrong, right? ;)
- Texa, on 10/15/2009, -8/+21The other day I made a comment about that potential da Vinci painting's price. The painting was worth $20K before someone discovered his finger print, and it was worth $150 million afterwards. If that sort of price difference makes sense for a silly painting, an apple logo can certainly justify $100 vs $300.
It's not just an ordinary external hard drive. It was touched by real apple employees you know. - UnbannedAccount, on 10/15/2009, -2/+15RTFA, it isn't the hard drive.
Side Note: Hard drives don't typically die after 18 months. - tehYama, on 10/15/2009, -9/+22Just works. Sort of.
- enantiodromia, on 10/15/2009, -3/+14yeah, 150+Mbits/s is too slow for one day of incremental backup... if you are rendering broadcast quality CG video.
if however, you are the other 99.999% of the world, your daily backup should take about one minute. - UnbannedAccount, on 10/15/2009, -2/+13Well said, but odds are the Chinese people assembling and packaging it aren't on AAPL payroll. Just hired by Apple.
- BlackJackJester, on 10/15/2009, -2/+1230+ unresolved critical security flaws in Safari.
- ejrizo, on 10/15/2009, -0/+10well im one of the ones that had his stop working... and it is not a Hard Drive issue... the issue this article is covering is simply one of POWER SUPPLY... it is defective and will just not power on after about 18 months.
- canthraxp, on 10/15/2009, -8/+18"Crap, I logged into my guest account, oh well... wait... wha-... *****? *sigh* Ok... I've got everything in my time capsule, great that I bought that a year ago, no... *****"
- akeldama, on 10/15/2009, -15/+25Premium Quality Apple Hardware...
Add one more to the list:
17" MacBook Pro brightness problems
17" MacBook Pro graphics problems (display lines)
17" and 15" MacBook Pro battery swelling
15" MacBook Pro's buzzing/whining noises
15" MacBook Pro's inability to wake from sleep
15" MacBook Pro's exhibiting unexpected shutdowns
13" MacBooks with unresponsive or "squishy" trackpad buttons
MacBook audio jacks problem
MacBooks are notebooks, not laptops because they run hot and Apple does not recommend you use them on your lap
Melting MagSafe Adapters
Fraying MagSafe Connectors
MacBooks with lame LCDs only capable of displaying 260,000 instead of the 16 million promised
MacBook's (and iBook G4's) notorious hairline cracks along the bottom and top enclosure.
MacBook Pro's warped lids
MacBook Pro's with powdercoat rubbing off
Defective 2.5" Seagate drives shipped in MacBooks
MacBook "no button" trackpads not registering clicks
MacBook discolored palm rests
MacBook logic boards failing
MacBook fan exhaust covered in tape
MacBooks with misapplied thermal paste
PowerBooks with keyboard keys pressing into the LCD display when closed gradually killing the display
MacBook Air's self loosening hinges
2009 MacBook Pro's artificially limited SATA IO (1.5Gbit/sec instead of 3Gbit/sec)
2009 MacBook Pros with "clicking" and "beeping" 7200 RPM hard drives that lead to slowdowns, lock-ups and crashes
iPhone overheating
iPhone oleophobic coating getting rubbed off display
iPod Touch exploding
Dying Apple Time Capsules - kmingis, on 10/15/2009, -8/+17A Time Capsule is more than just an external drive. It's a wireless router (a la Airport Extreme) married to a hard drive. It's designed to allow for over-the-air wireless backups.
- fury420, on 10/15/2009, -6/+15most external hard drives, hell, even most NAS drives do not include a wireless router.
when one looks at the cost of buying both a good 1TB gigabit NAS (with support for hooking up an external USB drive/printer/etc...) and a dual-band wireless N router the $299 pricetag does not seem all that pricey - MacHarborGuy, on 10/15/2009, -2/+11the initial backup will take a long time. the incremental backups there-after, unless you are moving large amounts of data around on your system, won't take long at all.
- BlackJackJester, on 10/15/2009, -1/+9I wouldn't really put a nearly priceless unique piece of World history from one of the most revered artist/inventors ever, in the same ballpark as a hard drive that is mass produced, and will most likely be irrelevant in 5-10 years.
- ohplease, on 10/15/2009, -6/+14OH CRAP! I just logged in to Snow Leopard using a Leopard guest account. All my files are deleted! Thank God I have a Time Capsule back up... OH CRAP!
- soopafly, on 10/15/2009, -12/+19Apple trolls are so annoying
- UnbannedAccount, on 10/15/2009, -14/+21Want to lose your precious data and backups? There is an app for that.
- fury420, on 10/15/2009, -2/+8how is a 7200rpm drive + gigabit ethernet + dual band wireless N slow? are you from the future or somethin?
I bet your NAS is a RAID array of SSD on 10gb ethernet, right?
plus, wireless backup certainly seems like a laptop feature to me, how many hundreds of gigs worth of incremental backup do people on a laptop actually produce?
hell, since its a laptop I'd bet most people would move it & plug it in for that rare time they have to access their whole backup - Hortnon, on 10/15/2009, -0/+6Apple doesn't make their own hard drives. The one I pulled out of a MacBook the other day was a Seagate SATA with an Apple logo on it.
- fury420, on 10/15/2009, -1/+7if its an automated time-machine style backup, why is wireless N too slow?
I mean... its going to be doing an incremental backup, most likely scheduled as well.
plus, you could always use wired gigabit ethernet if you needed uber-speedy scheduled backups - Radan, on 10/15/2009, -1/+6GARGH! I believe you kinda missed the "incremental backup" part there. You could have a gazillion yottabytes of data and update it via a freakin' carrier pigeon and it wouldn't really matter after the first initial backup.
- UnbannedAccount, on 10/15/2009, -0/+5@johnomaz Those that do fail at 18 months are piss-poor hard drives, whereas Apple always claims to be a quality product. To have the failure rate claimed in the story is pretty bad (if true).
Besides, again, the hard drives aren't the culprit for the time capsule issue. - Radan, on 10/15/2009, -1/+6"You do understand that one day you might have to actually access all of that backup.. right? I'll pass on recovering hundreds of gigs of data over a wireless connection."
You do understand that it's possible to connect via ethernet too, right?
Also, it's interesting how you somehow are incapable of seeing why some people, like say people with laptops, would prefer a wireless backup process over a wired one, even if it's slower. - EagleTG, on 10/16/2009, -0/+5Don't forget the cracking wrist-rests on the Macbooks. Got hit by that one myself.
- frouse, on 10/16/2009, -1/+5Wow a 5 year old PC sounds really quiet and power efficient!
- znicket, on 10/16/2009, -0/+4So, we have 260 cases reported so far... out of how many?
Is this within normal boundaries of equipment failure or not?
I love these useless pieces of journalism where no attempt is made to frame the problem with some references to ratio or total number sold. If Apple sold 2 million of these devices - 260 faulty units seems not excessive. If Apple only sold 10.000 of these devices, this would be a severe quality issue. - inactive, on 10/15/2009, -9/+13Im sure Apple will blame it on the users.
- enantiodromia, on 10/16/2009, -1/+5what's dumb is not realizing the first backup can be done via wired ethernet, and the daily backups can be done on wireless.
- jrapp, on 10/15/2009, -1/+5The idea is that your mac will automatically/wirelessly backup itself to the time capsule without user intervention.
I realize you can do this with an external USB drive, but it still requires the user to plug it in and start the backup manually (generally). This is even more true if you have a laptop. - Boondoggle, on 10/16/2009, -0/+4No you are NOT ***** if your backup fails. YOU are ***** if your PRIMARY FAILS and you have no backup.
- Hortnon, on 10/15/2009, -1/+4Or you could just buy a USB drive
- rx4boredom, on 10/15/2009, -2/+5You should post this at the Apple Time Capsule Memorial Register. Your point about quality going down deserves wide attention and hopefully will be heeded by Apple. I run an Apple shop with ~80 Macs varying in age from 11 year old G4's right up thru brand new stuff. Funny thing: the old ones and new ones are dying of the usual causes (HD's, PS's, GPU's & MB's) at same current dates, IE the old ones lasted a lot longer on average. They all (except laptops) run 24/7/365, no sleep, no spindown. That's a lot of HD rev's on 11 year old drives. Would like to see that quality return.
- Balanced, on 10/15/2009, -2/+5You don't have to plug it in.
I use an external FW HD to back up my laptop. It works fine, but I don't get backups if I'm away from my desk... I.E. "Using my laptop as a laptop."
Still, it's acceptable for me. - mrsatan, on 10/15/2009, -3/+6That's a cute analogy. Too bad their are a million more variations on PC hardware, so your point is moot.
- rebrad, on 10/15/2009, -12/+15I always thought that by design, Apple products should be replaced on an annual basis. That's so easy to understand that even the most naive fanboy should get it.
- MtheoryX, on 10/15/2009, -0/+3Apple doesn't make their own anything.
This isn't new, and they're definitely not the only ones that do this. - immatellyouwhat, on 10/15/2009, -0/+3Maybe they should go back in time and resolve the issue.
- Mudcrutch, on 10/15/2009, -5/+8Crap, I have 2 original ones still cranking. One is used in a small office and get heavy usage with no issues so far. Knock on wood.
- t0ny, on 10/15/2009, -0/+3I think just about everything is like this now.
- phoomp, on 10/16/2009, -0/+3Except, of course, the hard drive inside *this* NAS drive only has a 1 year warranty while any other half-decent drive you stick into any other NAS drive will have at least a *3* year warranty, if not 5.
- cuervoman914, on 10/16/2009, -1/+4just buy a new one. duh.
-love, apple. - dmm219, on 10/16/2009, -0/+3Nice try. Everyone is pointing at Apple on this one. Putting the PSU is a cramped, hot space was an Apple Design. This is THEIR fault, not some company overseas. Just take a look at the TC apple on the Apple Store...those are all apple "fanboys". And there isn't a lot of love on there for Apple at the moment.
Add to this Apple's shameful policy of forcing consumers to lose all control over their own personal data, by having to send in the defective TC, without removing, wiping and transfering the contents, and you have someone like me, who generally likes Apple, but is livid with Apple in this particular case...
And I'll fully give MS FULL credit to owning up to their crappy 360 quality with a no hassle extended warranty.
Apple could learn a few lessons from MS here... - phoomp, on 10/16/2009, -0/+2A device intended for backing up data should come with at least a 3 year warranty. I won't buy hard drives that don't have a 5 year warranty.
- MtheoryX, on 10/15/2009, -0/+2Aside from these reported issues, they're about the best consumer NAS, for the cheapest price, you can find anywhere.
If Mudcrutch is accurate about his devices still working, I'd say he spent his money wisely. - kineticarl, on 10/16/2009, -1/+3backup your backups, folks.
- cyssero, on 10/16/2009, -0/+2There is nothing unique or special about Mac hardware. Assembly is contracted out to manufacturers like ASUSTeK or Quanta and made alongside HP, Acer, Toshiba equivalents. The hard-disks aren't hand picked, they're no different to the ones Samsung, Western Digital, Hitachi, etc sell to all other companies. The MTBF for a HDD will be the same regardless of what the logo says on the outside.
This means two things. One, the extra price you pay on the Apple does not mean it will last longer than an Acer with similar specs worth half the price. Two, angry Apple users should be aware of this and should not be surprised if devices fail within acceptable time frame.
I know in countries in Europe warranty extends beyond the 12 months sometimes to what is deemed 'acceptable', but you'll have a tough time arguing your 3 year old Macbook had a HDD failure and it should be replaced free of charge. This should serve as a lesson next time - you're only paying the premium to run OS X (without hacks), and not for better quality internals. - JoeLeo, on 10/16/2009, -1/+3Steve Jobs was crystal clear when he introduced Time Capsule.
He said that Time Capsule had server grade hard drives that were built to last.
A Time Capsule drive is under less stress than a normal work Mac that's used on a daily basis. -
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