...in that it isn't an iMac at all?

Snow Leopard, iPhone, MacBook, all this year I hope. I want a Time Capsule but frankly it’s too expensive.

Should the movie industry ever decide it would rather sell movies than have us download torrents, then Apple TV will be a must-have.

Same here. They just take all the hassle out of backing up (even the massive hassle of plugging an external drive in once every couple of days ) and you can just forget about it.

I just can't justify it at the price they're selling them though.

I keep looking on eBay for a cheap one but they don't seem to come up.

Off-topic, what does Time Capsule give you that you can't achieve with a USB external drive? My USB drive is on a hub which my external keyboard & mouse are attached to, so it's very little hassle for me...

Does Time Capsule have some special hardware/firmware? Do you need to mount it in order to back-up to it?

It's wireless for a start.

I don't have any USB devices plugged into my computer, so it's hassle to plug the drive in and I often forget.

It is always connected to the wireless though, so that's the attraction for me - it's always connected that way and I don't need to bother about it. Ever.

That small bonus isn't worth such a high price though. As much as I am tempted!

I caved and bought a Time Capsule a little while back. In our two-laptop household it's a blessing to be able to have it back up both computers without even worrying about it, especially for my wife who is of the odd view that technology should just work and involve minimal input from the user. I'll be getting Snow Leopard (I actually saw a real one of those recently) and maybe, just maybe the old Nokia might be replaced with a new iPhone. We'll see.

I presume it also works over a wired network? I rarely use wireless because of the poor performance compared with wired gigabit.

Indeed it does, it comes with an ethernet port (handy for the initial backup, which can take a very long time).

So, that makes it slower than a NAS on a gigabit switch... Probably slower than a Firewire or USB drive as well...

Probably, but then what you lose in speed you gain in portability - I'd have to stay tethered to the HD if I used a cable while I backed up (assuming I could be bothered remembering to plug it in). The backups happen in the background as you work, so whether it takes 5 minutes or 50 minutes isn't really an issue.

My machines are switched on for very long each day - I switch them, and the network and everything else electrical in the house, at the mains when I am not using them, so speed is of essence.

The iMac and my Windows PC sit on the desk, so the NAS isn't an issue. It also saves me from the microwave radiation coming from the router, is more secure, is faster and more reliable... I use wireless at my girlfriends flat, which is a complete pain, with the laptop reconnecting, sometimes, every minute or so, after it has lost the signal - to the router which is less than 5M away!

Whatever works for you, big_D. If you're happy with your set-up, and you seem very pleased with yourself, then good for you. I'll trade convenience for speed any day.

The speed is neither here nor there.

It backs itself up in the background. I would be completely unaware of it, so I don't care if it does that for five minutes or five hours just so long as it gets done.

The reason I have a FireWire backup drive at the moment is because it does need to be quick. I want to unplug that drive and put it away again quickly. With a wireless device I couldn't care less, so your point is completely irrelevant.

I know you were highly exaggerating with timings, Nick, but the problem is that Time Machine should back up hourly. If you made a lot of changes to files every hour, for example if you made movies, and each backup took five hours, you'd have a problem.

Peter.

The first gen Time Capsules are not as good as the new ones, the latest ones have dual band WiFi. So if you're happy with one then great, just so you have an informed purchase.

I use Time Machine with a USB drive attached to my Airport Extreme. Yes wired would be quicker but as I don't have huge amounts of data to be backed up, WiFi is fine for me, backups incrementally in small chunks is adequate.