I know none of us have a Time Capsule yet, so the answer to my question is probably going to be rooted in speculation, but thought I'd throw this out there.

I'd like to replace my AEBS and the two FW400 hard drives daisy-chained to my Mac Mini for a Time Capsule mounted on my wired gigabit network to host all of my TS/MKV/VOB etc. media files.

Can anyone speak to the speed loss I'll experience and whether or not it will noticeably affect playing these files over my network? Keep in mind, I'm not talking about a wireless-N network, but a hard-wired gigabit set-up. I believe I've read that NAS drives can be less than ideal for streaming big media files (please correct me if I'm wrong) and I've been disappointed by USB2 HD's speed in the past with this type of material. But I'd love to replace three devices with one and also be able to turn off the Mini and still access my files.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer their expertise! :D

Not experience, per say, but the gig network should be faster than FW400.

Great news! Thanks, Ben.

I don't know about that Ben, NAS performance is almost never what it is cracked up to be. I would say most real world situations would lean toward FW400 being faster than NAS. Many people complained about drives hooked up to Airport Extreme's USB ports being painfully slow and this wasn't due to USB 2.0 being the limiting factor. In theory gigabit ethernet is quite fast but you need to enable jumbo frames and take into account network traffic and a whole bunch of other inefficiencies. Think of it this way; USB 2.0 is rated at 480Mbps whereas FW400 is significantly less at 400Mbps. Almost everyone agrees for hard drives that FW400 is faster.

I am not saying the TimeCapsule NAS type solution is going to be slow but I would not be surprised if it is slower than FW400 in the end.

You make good points Jerry.

There are really many more factors than just the connection method.

Speaking of Time Capsule, will one be able to backup multiple Macs to it via TimeMachine? And when is due to be released?

Thanks,
Ted

Speaking of Time Capsule, will one be able to backup multiple Macs to it via TimeMachine? And when is due to be released?

Thanks,
Ted

good questions and i want one.

I have 2 on order showing 'ships by feb 29'; Aligning with the product announcement promising by end of february. Also, it's operation requires the release of Leopard 10.5.2, reportedly in it's last beta seeds - expected release very soon.

Multiple macs are a yes:
from the website:
"Have multiple Macs in your house? Time Capsule can back up and store files for each Leopard-based Mac on your wireless network. No longer do you have to attach an external drive to each Mac every time you want to back up. Time Capsule spares you the work."

In addition, it mounts as a share drive, so you can access any shared files, even to PCs:
again from the site:
"Time Capsule with Time Machine in Leopard is the ideal backup solution. But that doesn’t mean Tiger, Windows XP, and Windows Vista users can’t enjoy the benefits of Time Capsule, too. Because it mounts as a wireless hard drive, Tiger and Windows users simply access Time Capsule directly from the wireless network for exchanging and storing files quickly and easily."

In addition, it provides share mounts for USB attached drives:
"And if you want to share both a printer and an additional hard drive, you can. Just connect a USB hub to Time Capsule. Whatever the combination, Time Capsule divides and conquers."


Now if only the 'new' AppleTV software would mount it as a shared drive!! Probably not - but, a mini should work or a wired/wireless stream to an AppleTV of a shared iTunes library should work (I'm hoping');

((OT: got to tell ya' - these new Air books are great - the wife and I have been using for a week now...))

ken

Leopard 10.5.2 is now released; we should be all set for time capsule when it ships...

ken