Without any big announcement, Apple has updated the Time Capsule, the wireless device that integrates an Airport access point and a backup system. Initially, the offer featured two different types of hard disks: 500Gb and 1TB, and the new generation doubles the capacity: the two new versions are respectively 1TB and 2TB.

The price remains untouched, hence the cost per gigabyte is lowered to half. The new Time Capsules are already available on the Apple Store Online.

Apple released a firmware update for their own wireless routers Airport 802.11n a few hours ago. The firmware update corrects five specific bugs and enhances the stability on the Time Capsule and AirPort Base Station. The update 7.4.2 corrects these issues:

- Loss of connection that sometimes happens on bigger networks
- Better compatibility with devices that use the “Power Save” function
- Better compatibility with third-party devices
- Correction of a possible issue when the base station uses the PPPoE
- Better reliability on the Back To My Mac function.

Before proceeding with the update, Apple advises users to verify that the AirPort Utility 5.4.2 is installed. The update can be done directly from the software, and for more information, users can visit the support page.

An Apple reseller (ClubMac) had published the picture above on their online store, showing a Time Capsule with a 2TB hard disk. Currently, the only options are 500GB and 1TB, and of course, since the discovery by the guys from MacRumors, the picture has misteriously vanished from the site, now replaced by a normal picture of the current Time Capsule.

We’re labeling it as rumors, of course, but it’s hard to determine whether it’s a true leakage of a second Time Capsule edition featuring more storage capacity or simply a fake, since it’s not that outrageous to think that eventually the storage space should be enhanced, after all. The main thing to figure out is whether Apple released that picture by mistake, which could mean an update on the Time Capsule should be coming soon.

Anyway, as for any rumors, we’ll wait for official confirmation.

The DisplayPort has already given a lot of problems to many users, and the rumors of a MiniDisplayPort-HDMI adapter has been going around for a while. Finally, there’s an official date to clear those rumors: it should be available on March 15th this year.

It’s not Apple, but it’s compatible, and it should cost $14,25 and only sold in one online store (Monoprice) for now. Hopefully it’ll be available in normal stores soon enough. It was about time.

LaCie, known French hardware manufacturer has recently added to their product list a new Blu-ray CD burner that has better performances than the previous model and it’s compatible with Mac OS X 10.4.8 or higher. The external unit supports both the USB 2.0 or FireWire 400 interface and is sold with a Toast Titanium 9 license included in the price.

The burner can burn up to 50GB on a BD-R dual-layer at the 4x or 8x speed (a max of 6x if the USB 2.0 port is used). BD-RE, DVD+-R, DVD +-RW, DVD+-R DL, CD-R and CD-RW are also compatible.

The only downside of the product is the price, fixed at $449,99, still a bit high considering the fact that it’s not yet possible to play Blu-Ray Disc videos on the Mac OS X.

Conclusions - Part 2

In fact, in order for the Time Capsule to work properly with Time Machine, it is necessary for the device to have an almost constant activity.

Obviously, when it comes to the back-up features, users will be somewhat limited to the Mac OS X in order to fully use Time Capsule, unless they already have a third-party backup software on Windows that will need to be properly configured to suit the device’s needs. Time Capsule, in fact, is recognized as a simple network unit for Windows Systems.

Conclusions - Part 1

Time Capsule has proved itself rather easy to use: all the configuration procedures are done in an autonomous way and the user doesn’t have to worry about what to set up.

During the review, we only mentioned its use with the Mac OS X, but Time Capsule is also compatible with Windows systems, and the configurations on Windows Vista should be automatically done the same way as for the Mac OS.

A very wise choice from Apple to choose a hard disk certified as an “enterprise” model, meaning it can work 24:7 without having any problems.

If the system is connected to Time Capsule’s wireless network, the correspondent disk will be immediately identified and it’ll be offered for an eventual selection. If the user chooses the Time Capsule’s disk, the password to unlock the writing rights will be needed.

Time Machine will then perform its first system backup, which could take a few hours in case of a high amount of data. Once it’s finished, Time Capsule will then work on the so-called incremental backups every hour, which means that the software will only update the created or modified elements. Through the “options” panel, it’s also possible to define a list of folders to exclude from the automatic backups.

With the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, a new feature to backup data has been introduced. Apple named it “Time Machine”, and its graphic interface was designed to be easy to use: whenever the user needs to recover data that was accidentally deleted from the main system, it’s sufficient to start Time Machine that will show a “time bar” in which the user will be able to go back to previous system stages or files.

In order to make Time Machine work correctly, and in this case connected with the Time Capsule, it’s necessary to choose the hard disk from the configuration interface.

The configuration doesn’t depend on the kind of connection we’re using as we configure the device: even if we are using a network cable, we can still configure Time Capsule to create a wireless network.

According to the options chosen, the software will then correctly set all the parameter and at the end of the session, it’ll ask the user to restart Time Capsule in order to complete the changes. At this point, it’ll be possible to share the storage space present on the unit by connecting to the wireless network created by Time Capsule, and access it either through Finder, that recognizes it as a normal shared hard disk, or by using the automatic backup features present on Time Machine.