Plus, two automated backup systems provide better insurance than one. It is less comprehensive and requires considerably more work to restore from, especially if you need to restore an entire machine. However, I see cloud backup as a complement to Time Machine, not a replacement for it. Unfortunately, when Apple discontinued its AirPort line of home networking products in 2018, the Time Capsule was one of the casualties.Ī potential alternative is a cloud backup service such as Backblaze, which I frequently recommend, and such a service works even when the laptop is not on your home network.

I have seen it fail occasionally, though it saves users’ data much more often than not. As an unusual hybrid, Time Capsule did not earn the confidence of some Mac users as a reliable backup device. The Time Capsule acted as a destination for automatic, hourly Time Machine backups from Mac computers on the same network. In other words, it was a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device, though Apple never described it as such.

(If you have to remember to connect a drive for backup, the backup system is no longer fully automatic.)Īpple answered the need for ongoing wireless laptop backups in 2008 with its AirPort Time Capsule, a Wi-Fi router with a hard drive inside. But, speaking from my experience as a consultant, I find that the vast majority of laptop users, myself included, are unlikely to plug in a drive regularly. Since its introduction in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple’s Time Machine has become one of the Mac’s most essential features, providing transparent, fully automatic, full-machine backup to an external drive, with retention of backup history limited only by the external drive’s capacity.įor desktop Macs, it’s easy to keep an external Time Machine drive permanently connected. Network Time Machine Backups: Moving on from the Time Capsule #1643: New Mac mini and MacBook Pro models, new second-gen HomePod, security-focused OS updates, industry layoffs.#1644: Explaining Mastodon and the Fediverse, HomePod Software 16.3 and tvOS 16.3, GoTo breach.#1645: AirPlay iPhone to Mac for remote video, Siri learns to restart iPhones, Apple's Q1 2023 financials.1646: Security-focused OS updates, Photos Workbench review, Mastodon client wishlist, Apple-related conferences.1647: Focus-caused notification issues, site-specific browser examples, virtualizing Windows on M-series Macs.

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