Apple time capsule thingy!

[bloodhunter]

Sorry for sounding stupid but I'm completely new to Apple computers, I've just bought a brand new iMac and wondered what the above titled thing exactly is.
From what I can tell it looks like a back up external drive, is this correct and if so can I just use a normal USB external drive instead?

Thanks.

 

[Ryan-3]

The Time Capsule is a router with a hard drive inside for either network storage (although this isn't its real purpose) or use with Time Machine on OSX for creating backups of your Mac.

 

[Feek]

can I just use a normal USB external drive instead?

Yes, you can use an external USB drive for Time Machine backups.