Time Capsule

stormbreaker · 17 Jan 2012 at 19:20

How do I get individual files onto the TC?

randal · 17 Jan 2012 at 19:44

Have you mapped the network drive on Windows?

Once you've done that it'll just appear as another drive in Windows.

stormbreaker · 17 Jan 2012 at 19:46

How do you map it?

I currently have windows doing a backup to the TC through it's own software.

Do I always have to have the TC attached to my O2 router via an ethernet or can I just have it in my room?

Thanks.

randal · 17 Jan 2012 at 19:50

Explorer, Tools, Map Network Drive. Remember the stuff I said on page one about username/password. Alternatively, you can navigate to the share in Explorer and right click on that to map a network drive.

It can be wifi setup yep so you can put it where you want, I just found it a lot easier as a bridge in the way I've shown you.

Not done it though, so either some helpful soul will have to come along... or there's always Google.

stormbreaker · 17 Jan 2012 at 19:57

Cool, thanks. While it's backing up, I think I'll leave it for the time being.

Thank you so much.

I'll post again to let you know when I have successfully done a backup of my PC.

I presume with Time Machine, it is nowhere near as difficult?

Thanks again.

randal · 17 Jan 2012 at 20:04

You'll love the Time Machine setup.

Associate your Macbook with the access point on the TC, then if memory serves it'll ask you if you want to use it as a backup disk. 120 seconds later (built in count down) it'll start doing a full backup.

Or if it doesn't System Preferences --> Time Machine --> Select Disk --> Enter Password --> As above

One thing that's worth remembering, first backup I'd do over cabled connection. It maybe Wireless-N, but Gb ethernet is a lot faster.

I copied all my music/photos etc.. over to mine when I set it up, then the last thing I did was a Time Machine backup overnight via cabled connection. Job done.

Glad you're sorted, and you're welcome. Enjoy it. Well, you will enjoy it when you remind yourself it's there. It's one of those things you can completely forget about!

Faustus · 17 Jan 2012 at 22:25

randal24 said:
You'll love the Time Machine setup.

Associate your Macbook with the access point on the TC, then if memory serves it'll ask you if you want to use it as a backup disk. 120 seconds later (built in count down) it'll start doing a full backup.

Or if it doesn't System Preferences --> Time Machine --> Select Disk --> Enter Password --> As above

One thing that's worth remembering, first backup I'd do over cabled connection. It maybe Wireless-N, but Gb ethernet is a lot faster.

I copied all my music/photos etc.. over to mine when I set it up, then the last thing I did was a Time Machine backup overnight via cabled connection. Job done.

Glad you're sorted, and you're welcome. Enjoy it. Well, you will enjoy it when you remind yourself it's there. It's one of those things you can completely forget about!

I thought I read somewhere that the wireless and wired backups weren't compatible with each other?

randal · 17 Jan 2012 at 22:29

Nah, nonsense. The sparse bundles on the TC are the same no matter how you connect.

Faustus · 17 Jan 2012 at 22:43

randal24 said:
Nah, nonsense. The sparse bundles on the TC are the same no matter how you connect.

Just going off a cnet youtube video presentation that mentioned this as a point to remember?

Perhaps this is what they were referring to? - The filesystem for networked hard drives (which connect to the computer via Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi) is different than the file system for hard drives that are cabled directly to a computer via Firewire or USB. Time Machine's method of backing up to networked hard drives like Time Capsule is therefore different than its method of backup up to hard drives that are connected directly. This is probably why Apple didn't include a Firewire or USB option in the Time Capsule. Firewire and USB are markedly faster than Ethernet or Wi-Fi, but since Time Machine's backup method is different for networked vs. directly-connected drives, you can't simply switch from one to the other and have Time Machine still recognise the drive.

randal · 17 Jan 2012 at 23:02

A networked backup is a networked backup, so either over ethernet or wifi it's the same sparse bundle that the machine is connecting to. Hence how my full wired backup on installation, then subsequent incremental backups work.

I would assume (although I haven't tested, and that article seems to dispute) that the same would be true for FW/USB backups to external drives. All TM does is write the content of your machine's drives out to a TM volume, which it saves as a sparse bundle. Those bundles are just 8mb stripes of your data, whether they're written over network or local they should be the same as they're just flat files.

I live to be proven wrong though.

Faustus · 17 Jan 2012 at 23:17

randal24 said:
A networked backup is a networked backup, so either over ethernet or wifi it's the same sparse bundle that the machine is connecting to. Hence how my full wired backup on installation, then subsequent incremental backups work.

I would assume (although I haven't tested, and that article seems to dispute) that the same would be true for FW/USB backups to external drives. All TM does is write the content of your machine's drives out to a TM volume, which it saves as a sparse bundle. Those bundles are just 8mb stripes of your data, whether they're written over network or local they should be the same as they're just flat files.

I live to be proven wrong though.

Well as I don't have a TC then obviously I can't comment one way or the other but one would assume that the testers should know or have tested this device to come up with this info?

randal · 17 Jan 2012 at 23:22

The test would be to do a full backup to USB/FW then copy the entire directory over to the TC and see if it incrementally backs up - or if you can access it for restores.

I would assume though that being on the same host it would work fine. I'll have a read.