January 2008 Archives

Time Capsule

It's an AirPort Extreme with a 500GB or 1TB drive specifically targeting Time Machine backups. At $499, it's very aggressively priced; comparable to low end NAS units that don't include access point functions. I wonder what "server grade hard drive" means — I suspect that just means it's not a 2.5" ATA drive (which has been the knock on using the Mac Mini as a server). Here at the Labs, Mac users get an external Firewire drive and a copy of SuperDuper! for backups. I don't think we'll be replacing that low-tech-but-bulletproof setup anytime soon, but Time Capsule looks really nice for a home setup, particularly in a household with multiple Mac users.

New Xserves

Looking good. Available with four or eight cores, and memory is now expandable to 32 GB. The base models are price competitive with similarly equipped Sun and Dell machines. Plus, they're available with zippy SAS drives. For us IT geeks, this was a bigger announcement than the speculative ultraportable at MacWorld next week.