We all know that it is much more beautiful to have a Time Capsule instead of what I am about to tell you, but if you have an external disk for Time Machine what you need is an Airport Extreme.
Today I have purchased one of these devices and the truth is that the local network flies low since several computers have 802.11n and the case is that a Mac Mini, despite having 802.11g, does the buffering of a movie from the MacBook Pro in much less time than before with a Linksys AP-xx54G.
The configuration is as simple as inserting a CD and following the very simple installation steps that also guide you to copy the configuration of the previous access point or Wi-Fi router even if you no longer have it connected at the time of installation. Also, when you replace the access point with the Airport Extreme, you already have a network, since by default it is already preconfigured to give an open connection without keys.
Be careful with this since when it works from the first minute it can make you believe that this is the case but you have to configure it to have WPA2 encryption and that no one from outside can screw us up.
You just have to connect a hard disk to the time machine, tell each Mac that you want to remember the password to access it, tell time machine to use the disk we just mounted from the Finder and bualá… we already have Time Capsule
I have TimeCapsule of 500 GB and I could say that I am more than enchanted with it, it is a great team, the function for which it was created does not fulfill it since the backup copies are made every Friday and cloning the internal drive, thus I avoid myself complications.
Tell you that if the access to the Hard Drive connected to the Extreme via gigabit ethernet is as in the TC you have them clear, let me explain: I acquired this equipment with a very clear idea: Use it from MediaCenter N and use it in meetings / server, but the funny thing is that when you access the Hard Drive via ethernet, the data recording is done at 13 MB per second and the reading at 26 MB per second. so it leaves much to be desired, since a MacMini does it at 60/80 MB per sec. respectively.
I was very tempted to buy the Mini, now I will have to buy it although I will wait for February, because of the offers.
I have tested the coverage of the CT, I placed it at a height of 10 meters (a building) and measured the effective distance by synchronizing at 300 MB in 200 linear meters, straight and without obstacles. If you change to 54 MB and set it to 1'2 Ghz, the distance is the same, so better N.
Another curious fact is that when you tell the TC that it is Compatible N and G it is assumed that if someone connects via G, the network changes to the slowest, because it is NOT like that, at least in my case, a laptop PC connected by G synchronized the movie at 54 megabytes while with the MacBook it connected by N and synchronized the same movie at 300, simultaneously (yes, we did a double video streaming of the same file at different speeds, it is an amazing step). Do you already know who the entire streaming reached the fastest, right? :-p
Salu2
For what you say, I have a Mac Mini. It is the best mediacenter and I am very happy. The Time Capsule, given the low data transfer speed, takes about 10 hours to make the first backup, but once done, the updates are a matter of minutes.
It is for what it is, for Time Machine users and just in case to play some movies so that the Mac Mini can play them from its Front Row with the soft link trick that I published.
The explanation for the fact that the Mac Mini streamed faster than before is simple. The activity of the MacBook Pro or the iMac no longer reduces local bandwidth for the G since it is like having two different channels with which the G is dedicated for the Mac Mini.
I forgot to put the link to the entry of the mentioned trick: https://www.soydemac.com/2008/05/04/mostrar-contenido-de-cddvd-en-frontrow/