Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

In my household we have a MacBook Air, 2 PC's, 2 iPhones, and an iPad. For a long time I've wanted a shared storage drive that would always be on so all my computers and iOS devices could access it wirelessly at any time. The new Apple Time Capsule has finally given me that. In addition, the wireless internet speed of my network is 50% faster. NETWORK SET UP Setting up the Time Capsule for the internet was extremely easy. My iPad immediately recognized the Time Capsule after I connected it to the modem and plugged it in. On the iPad I created the network name and password. I also created a guest network name and password. The Time Capsule updated this and I was up and running. From pulling it out of the box to surfing the internet was less than 5 minutes. INTERNET SPEED TEST After I connected all my computers and iOS devices to the new network I did a speed test with the app Speedtest.net on my iPhone. I had an inexpensive Belkin wireless N router before getting the new Time Capsule and was curious to know if and by how much my internet download and upload speed improved with the Time Capsule. With my old wireless router and the iPhone next to it my download speed was 27 mbps and my upload speed was 8 mbps. At about 35 feet away from the Belkin router my download speed was 22 mbps and my upload speed was 7 mbps. With the Time Capsule and the iPhone next to it my download speed improved to 40 mbps and my upload speed was 10 mbps. At about 35 feet away from the Time Capsule my download speed improved to 38 mbps and my upload was 10 mbps. Overall with the new Time Capsule my internet speed got 50% faster. I was most impressed with the speed since my internet subscription is only for 30 mbps. SHARED STORAGE SET UP As mentioned earlier I wanted the Time Capsule as a shared storage drive so all my computers, PC and Mac, and all my devices, iPhone and iPad, could access it. Neither of my PC's recognized the Time Capsule hard drive on the network. The MacBook Air had no problem recognizing it. It wasn't until I dragged a file from the MacBook Air to the Time Capsule hard drive that my PC's recognized the Time Capsule and were able to access the shared drive. Honestly I'm not sure if dragging the file did it or my PC's just needed more time to get connected to the Time Capsule. My only grip with the Time Capsule is that my PC's at times will need to be on for 20+ minutes before they connect to the Time Capsule hard drive and have disconnected a few times. I haven't had any issues with the MacBook Air, iPhones, or iPad connecting to the Time Capsule hard drive or issues with it randomly disconnecting on any of the Apple devices. SHARED STORAGE TRANSFER RATE Wireless N transfer of files between my main PC and Time Capsule is adequate but it may be too slow for some. I'm curious to know what the transfer rate improvement would be with wireless AC on that PC. My other PC is connected to the Time Capsule via an ethernet cable so transfer rates aren't an issue with that computer. When downloading files from my main PC to the Time Capsule or uploading files from the Time Capsule to my main PC via wireless N, my transfer rate for both averages to be 1.7 mbps. For the transferring of photos or videos that I've done so far it is fine. If I was to transfer about 20 gigs of images though I'd want a wired connection to the Time Capsule otherwise it would take 3 1/2 hours to transfer wirelessly. SECONDARY DRIVE SET UP Setting up a secondary drive for the Time Capsule was quick and easy. I took my Western Digital external hard drive that I used as backup with my PC and formatted it to use as a secondary drive for the Time Capsule. To use with the Time Capsule the external hard drive needed to be reformatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled). After that was done I plugged it into the Time Capsule. Again my PC's didn't recognize it but the MacBook Air did. Though I haven't done it yet I plan to use the external drive for Time Machine backup with the MacBook Air. If you try to use the hard drive in the Time Capsule for a shared drive and Time Machine backup, the hard drive needs to be partitioned. I plan to use all the hard drive space in the 2 TB Time Capsule for a shared drive so I wanted to get a secondary drive set up for Time Machine. ACCESSING FILES FROM IPHONE & IPAD Finally I set up the 2 iPhones and iPad to access the files on the Time Capsule. For that I downloaded the app Remote File Browser. They have a paid version and a free version. I tried the free version and it's worked fine for my needs so far. USING TIME CAPSULE AS YOUR MAIN STORAGE DRIVE The Time Capsule is great to store your iTunes music library to play on your computer or photos to open up and work on in Photoshop. I opened up iTunes and added music from the Time Capsule to my iTunes library on my PC computer. The music played flawlessly. I opened a few images saved on the Time Capsule in Photoshop to edit and it worked great too. After opening images from the Time Capsule in Photoshop you will want to save the PSD locally to improve speed and then transfer the final edited image back over to Time Capsule when you are done. I've also watched some movies stored on the Time Capsule on my PC and they ran fine as well. However, the wireless N transfer rate between the Time Capsule and PC is too slow to watch 1080p videos I've shot with my digital camera. SUMMARY Overall the new Time Capsule is a great shared storage drive for Mac and PC. Plus, you have the ability to access all the content on an iOS device with the proper app. For anyone with a MacBook Air the Time Capsule is a must have because it alleviates perhaps the biggest downside of the MacBook Air, hard disk space. You can store your TB of music, photos, and videos on the Time Capsule and play the music and videos through iTunes once it is added to the library and access pictures so long as you are on your network. Best of all you retain the sleek, compactness of the MacBook Air, nothing else needed. In addition to all this the new Time Capsule provides your network with fast, reliable internet which is easy to set-up and ready for the future with its wireless AC capability.