Is Time Capsule really worth it?

Any hard drive does the job. Its a matter of how bad you need a wireless solution.

I wouldn’t think so, not when you’re paying $1 per GB. Sure, you get all the other stuff with it but I’d just go for an external firewire HD, much cheaper and probably faster than over wireless…

Time Capsules are by far the cheaper route to go if you need a router with wireless N capability, not to mention they are dead simple to set up (unlike every other router on the market that will have your fiddling with it for hours). Not to mention that the compared to a network store solution is very favorable anyway ($/GB). Plus, they use server-grade drives, significantly better than typical PC drives you would normally get. Using Time Machine (built into Leopard) is also dead simple and seems to work really well. I just set 3 Time Capsules up over the weekend and, so far, they seem great. I’m certainly going to put it on the list for my home network when I have a chance.

@Maverick: True, but I’m assuming joeysefika is looking more towards the HD aspect of time capsule than the router aspect, am I right? Unless you don’t already have a router…

The server grade HD is certainly an important point. A backup that fails is completely redundant.

I’ll let you know in a couple weeks when mine arrives. :-)

If the backup thing is not enough, it has interesting wi-fi capabilities, too.

Backing up is very good. Wireless Ethernet is very convenient. If you need both, Time Capsule is the way to go.

Other than that, you could get a USB hard drive and plug it into the side of your computer. Cheaper, but also less convenient, and you don’t get the benefit of the Airport base station.