It’s something which we’re constantly told to do, but something very few of us ever actually take action on. What are we talking about? Backing up your precious data.

It was made immensely easier when Apple integrated Time Machine into every copy of OSX Leopard, but now there’s a new kid on the wireless block which makes backing up all the Macs in your house a simple un-daunting task.

Not only does the Time Capsule backup wirelessly but it also doubles as a 802.11n router, which allows 5X faster network speeds and twice the range of a traditional .11g router. Not to mention, when you plug in a printer to the USB port on the back of the unit, it also can be used as wireless print server with over 50 Macs or PCs on your network. Now we’re talking.

Design

Time Capsule looks strikingly similar to the Airport Extreme, with its sleek Apple-like design and sheer sexiness. If you were to place both the Airport Extreme and Time Capsule next to one another, you would notice that Time Capsule has a chrome Apple logo and is slightly thicker due to the integrated hard drive and cooling system.

It looks phenomenal on my desk, next to my iMac and my MacBook Pro.

Setup

Setup was extremely easy both on a Mac and a PC. On a Mac, you simply install the Airport Utility which you use to manage all wireless connections around your house. Once you get the utility up and running you answer a few simple questions, follow several steps, and before you know it, your connected.

It’s just as easy using a Windows machine. Setting up Time Machine for wireless backup was also a snap. Simply click on Time Machine, slide the switch to the on position, and then select your Time Capsule to begin your first backup, which depending on how much data you have, can take some time for the initial backup. From there, the incremental backups should be brief and painless for the network.

Life with Time Capsule

I have a 1TB Time Capsule that my MacBook Pro and my iMac share. Over the past several months I have been quite pleased with it, except for when I have occasional printer troubles, which can become very aggravating. The wireless printing feature hasn’t worked in weeks - although this could be a problem with my network settings.

It’s super quiet except for the occasional spin of the hard-drive when it’s backing up. Quite honestly, I would have never backed up if it wasn’t for this product. I recommend it to anyone who has a MacBook Air, or any Mac portable for that matter. After all, who wants to be tied down for hours at a time while your computer backs up, or worse off, lose data from not backing up at all? Errr, not me.

Longer Battery Life

Initial reactions from users of the MacBook Air SSD model report an increased battery life expectancy of around 10-15%, providing them with an extra hour of productive work while on the go.

Without the moving mechanical parts that cause latency issues, SSDs are not impeded by spin-up, seek time, or rotational latency. This equates to faster boot times, faster application loading, and greater overall system responsiveness.

No Noise From Drive

While typing away on the MacBook Pro, two noises can be heard. The fans cooling the processor, and above all else, the hard-drive spinning up and down as required to access files. The Solid State Drive has no moving parts, which means the drive doesn’t spin - providing a noiseless working experience.

Reliability From Bumps

SSD stands for Solid State Drive. Solid State means no moving parts. No moving parts means the data cannot be destroyed by bumping a head of the drive which is reading or writing. Get the picture?

SSDs are extremely tolerance to shock and vibration caused by the user.

Quicker App Switching

While some standard hard-drives will still beat solid state drives when moving or copying large chunks of data, the SSD moves ahead with leaps and bounds when asked to open multiple applications at once, and while switching between them. It’s areas like this where you come to appreciate the SSD, as the comparable hard-drive chokes and burns under similar conditions.

Lower Heat Levels

With no spinning heads, Solid State Drives do not require any fans to keep them cool. SSDs produce little-to-no measurable heat because they have no moving parts, thus helping keep notebooks operating cooler.

The Flip Side

Although they exceed performance of most conventional notebook drives, SSDs are still at a price premium in the current market. With Apple charging a very competitive $999 for the 64GB SSD build-to-order option in the MacBook Air, been an early adopter of the technology is not a cheap thrill.

Prices are expected to fall at the rate of 40% per year, so the $999 drives we see today are expected to cost only $200 by 2010. By that stage I’d expect Apple’s full range of notebook computers will ship with a solid state drive as the standard configuration.

I’m still hard at work finishing up a NZ national computing course, hence the lack of recent blog activity. In the mist of an eventful past few weeks, I’ve sorted a solution to something which has been on my mind for quite some time, a reliable active photo storage system complete with a backup.

The Hardware

I now have a thee tiered system which incorporate Lightroom as the image management tool. The system is made up by three pieces of hardware. The MacBook Pro, Seagate Freeagent 250GB USB drive, and LaCie Porsche 250GB Firewire 400 drive.

The System

My active 2008 library is stored on the MacBook Pro’s internal HDD. Previous years folders (2006 & 2007) are sitting on the Seagate Freeagent 250GB USB drive. When 2009 comes around, the 2008 folder will be archived on the Seagate drive, on a continuous cycle.

Both the active 2008 library and the archived images get backed up onto another 250GB drive, the LaCie Porsche Firewire 400.

I’m relatively happy with how the system shapes out. I have my current years worth of images on hand wherever I am with the MacBook Pro and access to older archived images is provided by the very portable Seagate Freeagent USB drive. While backups are hosted on the reliable LaCie Porsche drive at Firewire 400 speeds for snappy regular backup sessions.

The overall transition from a powerful desktop to a slim portable machine has been very smooth to date. I enjoy portability much more than the added power of the desktop machine, the MacBook Pro is one tool I don’t think I could go without now having used it for a few weeks.

However, there has been one downside to the transition which I expect to see eliminated over the course of the next 24 months - data storage. It’s difficult when you have over 500GB of live data but just a 160GB internal hard-drive. This will start to improve as manufacturers pump out higher density drives, Western Digital already have a 320GB drive on the market. I don’t think it’ll be too far away until we see those as official Apple BTO options for the MacBook Pro.

I’m very interested in the new WD Scorpio 320GB 5400-RPM HDDs. Installing a 320GB drive into the MacBook Pro would mean less data to keep on external drives, in turn leaving me with less headaches. It’s no fun receiving a warning message like shown above. Thank goodness for my 250GB LaCie Porsche external drive, which is now home to my extensive catalog of digital images in Lightroom (review coming very soon for those who have asked).

With the release of Mac OSX 10.5 Leopard just over 24 hours away, if you’re like me you’ll be eagerly preparing for the new operating system. I’ve been asked a few times over the weeks leading up to the launch announcement of Leopard on which external hard drives would be good to hook up for use with Time Machine.

While defining the word ‘good’ is hard as people have different needs, different budgets, and different views on what looks good. I took all three of these points to hand while picking four classy external drives to pair with Time Machine.

Western Digital MyBook Home Edition

A few of my buddies use this hard drive and their main statement about it is how great it looks on their desk.

Western Digital have an extensive range of MyBook HDDs in their lineup. The one highlighted here is the Home Edition.

The Home Edition drive spins at 7200 RPM, offers a triple interface of USB 2.0, Firewire 400 & 800, and has a capacity gauge on the exterior of the unit to see at a glance how much space is free.

500GB $219.99

Iomega Desktop Hard Drive

Along with the G-Tech G-DRIVE, Apple is heavily promoting the Iomega 500GB Hi-Speed USB 2.0 external drive on the Apple online store.

This drive spins at 7200 RPM, connects via USB 2.0, and includes a classy stand in the box allowing you to stand the drive vertically for extra airflow.

This drive is currently on special while supplies last from Apple. See below for a pull quote from the Apple Store.

Special deal: Only $139.95 for this 500GB Iomega drive while supplies last.

500GB $139.95

G-Tech G-DRIVE

If you’ve been watching any of Apple’s recent videos on Leopard such as the official Leopard Tour, you’ll have seen Apple using this drive in conjunction with the iMac to demonstrate Leopard.

It’s not the cheapest external hard-drive on the market, but it looks the piece when paired up with an aluminum Mac, in particular, the iMac.

This drive spins at 7200 RPM with a Hitachi drive, has FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 ports, and features a unique silent cooling technology for superior reliability.

500GB $279.95

Newertech miniStack V3

We have one of these in our household attached to the Airport Extreme as network attached storage for family related files. I can vouch for its quality.

The miniStack is a compact hard-drive available in two versions, FireWire 400/800 and USB. Like the other drives featured, it spins at 7200 RPM. It’s encased in a slim white enclosure which sits nicely underneath a Mac mini or Apple Airport Extreme.

500GB $199

Personally, I’m currently ’stuck’ with a 250GB LaCie Porsche Firewire drive for Time Machine. I plan to swap this out with a 1TB external drive as prices continue to drop. The LaCie drive will be set up to backup my boot drive. My Aperture library will get backed up via the Ministack (as seen above).

Keeping on the topic of Time Machine and external hard-drives, Paul Stamatiou wrote a great post about Leopard & the sales of external drives on his blog yesterday morning.

What drive are you going to employ into full time Time Machine service?

In the 21st century, not having a backup of your valuable data is almost like placing your computer in the middle of the highway and waiting for it to be destroyed. Thats why I purchased a LaCie Porsche 250GB external hard-drive to use as a back-up drive. Because I value my data.

Design

I had the option to buy a Maxtor 300GB drive $30 cheaper than the LaCie, but chose the LaCie over it for one main reason. It’s style.

The Porsche series cannot be beaten with it’s stylish aluminum inclosure, matching almost any Macintosh setup. It’s nice and clean looking, and there’s an option to stack up to four drives on top of each other if you want to create a huge storage stack.

LaCie has included a glowing status light on the front of the drive to indicate what the drive is doing. When it’s a solid orange, you know the drive is idle, and not currently being accessed.

Speed

I suggest you opt for the FireWire version over the cheaper USB 2.0 model. The speed difference is tremendous. After completing a few benchmarks in store while testing the drive out, and the FireWire model was continuously 3 times faster than the USB one.

Here’s a quick speed test, the applications Mail, Safari, iTunes, Handbrake, and SuperDuper when open at time of test.

Transferring 60MB File To LaCie: 3.3 Seconds
Transferring 60MB File From LaCie: 3.6 Seconds

Heat

One thing the LaCie Porsche drive lacks is a cooling fan. Usually it’s not a good thought when you mix a hardware object which will be connected to a machine all day long, with no fan - but the Porsche drives (lack of) heat when moving files will leave you with a cool head when you knock off at night - knowing your data is safe.

I was able to transfer over 100GB of files straight to the drive without it heating up too much, sure, it was warm to the touch, but nothing excessively due to the tasks I was running. 15 minutes later the drive was cool and quiet once again.

If you’re buying a drive without a cooling fan, make sure the capacity of the drive is not too high. If you need over 500GB of storage space - skip the Porsche drive as it’s far to much of a risk to take for the price you pay should anything go wrong. For the small form factor, and the great price, the LaCie Porsche performs well without the need for a fan.

Noise

Due to it’s lack of a cooling fan, I expected the drive to be relitavely noisy even when not being accessed, but to my surprise, after a few days of moving files back and forth and having the drive sitting idle for hours on end, I’m very happy with the (lack of) noise the drive makes.

I recommend you go into System Preferences, Energy Saver, and check “Sleep Hard Drives When Possible”. It’s virtually silent when idle - and whisper quiet when in use.

Overall, a great purchase to keep your data safe. If you haven’t already got an external hard-drive, the LaCie Porsche is the way to go.