Just retired my trusty Time Capsule. I have a new ORBI mesh network in the house. I want to buy a new external HD and plug it into the ORBI router with an ethernet cable for time machine back-ups (I don't want to use the old time capsule for storage). Can someone recommend an external HD that will work for this purpose (maybe 2 TB or so)? I understand I need an NAS hard drive? Any particular pitfalls I should be aware of?
Got to agree with that.
Time Capsule was flawed product but for many people (yourself included) had no issues with them and it worked well. Plus it was the cheapest product on the market to do the job.. Not often you can say that with Apple.
However they have now moved to SMB3 and the TC was not upgradable. So it is time to move on.
Thanks for replying - I am assuming that the cheapest model you are referring to is the DS220j?
Thanks! Will give one a try. Sort of a shame Apple exited the time capsule market since their excellent time machine experience is a bit goofed up now!
USB on the ORBI does not support hard disks so you need a NAS.
The best one is Synology. They are expensive but come with detailed info on getting Time Machine to work.
Several of us here replaced old TC with Synology.
The cheapest model Synology will work fine for backup but if you have enough to afford it.. buy one with an x86 processor rather than lowest end model. The Synology can become a useful file server, photo storage and lots more.. even security surveillance recorder.
Correct.. although the cheapest is probably a single disk version I certainly would always recommend at least the 2 bay model.. DS220j is built to the price as you will see if you buy it.. very plastiky-yukky.
LOADS of reviews and buyer info on youtube.
And nothing wrong btw with buying a second hand 2 bay a couple of years old.. as many people will discover they need a 4 bay.. that makes a cheaper entry point and you never know.. after a couple of years.. the stars may align.. and you will decide a 4 bay is also for you.. or Apple might get their act together and finally have reduced Macs to glorified iPads and you can store everything in the cloud.
Very chatty Englishman.. but good reviews.
2bay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvLkSw30ZUY
4bay
Time Machine Support with Mesh WIFI network
