[taldrich]

Well I'm thrilled (in theory) with my new 1TB Time Capsule.

I have set it up with an Airtunes Airport Express, and a second Airport Express to extend the network.

At the time of writing, my iMac G5 has been performing a glacial Time Machine backup for 24 hours, having only backed up 69GB out of 170GB.

Is this normal?

Thanks for any input.

[OreoCookie]

If you do the backup wirelessly, yes.

[MacosNerd]

Just to add to what Oreo stated.
The initial backup for Time Machine is slow, regardless of what external drive you use, factor in the bandwidth of doing it on wifi means it will take a long time. I believe that once you've done the initial, the incremental backups should be more palatable. Just remember 802.11n is still slower then FW800 so performance will be less then a setup that utilizes a firewire drive.

[taldrich]

Thanks for the input. I guess the answer is to do a wired back up first time out.

[turtle777]

But even a wired will take a long time the first time.

Btw, if you read the manual, it would have told you to do the first backup with TC connected via ethernet.

When it comes to TC, reading the manual really helps.

-t

[taldrich]

LOL. Point taken. But If I RTFM then it wouldn't be such fun!

[krove]

Also, if you have a mixed b/g/n network (as with AirPort Expresses), then the network will definitely perform slower. Also, check for interference from cordless phones, microwaves, etc.

[Cory Bauer]

Originally Posted by krove 

Also, check for interference from cordless phones, microwaves, etc.

How would one check for that? Thanks.

I too have my first time capsule backup running at the moment, now 9 hours in and about 2/3 completed (68GB). I also made the mistake of not connecting via ethernet for the first backup, and am also running a mixed b/g/n network (my MacBook Pro is pre-n era).

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Cory Bauer 

How would one check for that? Thanks.

Don't have any cordless phones in that house that are 2.4HHz and don't put computer or airport near microwaves.

[mrpme]

taldrich or anybody else out there, I'm curious how things are going with your 1 TB TimeCapsule and your Airport Express (extender) and Airport Express (music pusher). I'm considering a 1 TB timecapsule that will be wired all the time to a MacPro. I also have two Airport Expresses that I want to turn one to an extender and one a music pusher. Currently, we use TimeMachine to an internal harddrive in the MacPro (it has three - appls, data, timemachine drives), but photos and video are filling it up fast so I'd like to move the timemachine to the 1 TB timecapsule. I wouldn't think of trying to back up around 200GB wirelessesly. I'm concerned due to the large number of negative comments on all the boards. Curious of people's comments...

[taldrich]

Well it's 8 months down the line and I'm pretty pleased. But the caveat is that I had to throw money at it. I upgraded to an Intel iMac which uses the 802.11n standard. I also swapped out my Airport Express to the faster standard.

Everything now runs very smoothly, and I expect that if you're wired, as you propose, then you will have a very smooth experience. In terms of wireless, I am told that if you have 802.11g appliances on the network, everything comes down to that speed, hence my upgrade to the faster Airport Express.

Time capsule has a better range than the Airport Extreme, so you might not need the Express to extend your network.

One thing I do notice is that when Time Machine commences its hourly backup to the Time Capsule, my music playback over Airtunes is interrupted for about 2 seconds, presumably because of the extra load.

[mrpme]

Thank you so much for the update. I didn't realize there were different Airport Expresses, but fortunately the two I have are the newer models with 802.11n. I've moved our current Linksys router around, but the Aiport Express still cuts out at times so I'm looking fwd to seeing if the TimeCapsule gives me better range. It'll be upstairs in an office while the Family room is downtstairs and other side of the house. Worse case, I'll add the Express as the extender. Do you leave the extender plugged in all the time?