[HN Gopher] Time has run out on Time Capsules
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Time has run out on Time Capsules
Author : ingve
Score : 54 points
Date : 2021-07-15 06:09 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (eclecticlight.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (eclecticlight.co)
| chenster wrote:
| No shit. Just replaced my 8-year old TC with a NetGear.
| _lex wrote:
| Replacing my time capsule is not a priority for me, because it's
| a backup. If the backup goes bad / fails, I'm not sure why I
| should care (unless it fails silently)... By definition, I have a
| duplicate copy so all I need to do is to replace it when it
| fails, with whatever the latest greatest solution is. I do
| recognize that there's a bit of risk during that replacement
| period, but I'm not losing sleep over a few days of exposure. And
| I'm not worried with it failing silently because my machine is
| constantly writing to it and it's constantly moving and
| compacting (aka reading) data to eliminate the oldest stuff
| anyways.
|
| My only actual concern is whether or not the networking aspect of
| my time capsule is up to snuff... Perhaps it makes sense to get a
| better wireless router, and perhaps there have been advances in
| router tech that mean I could get way better performance on my
| network. But there's no easy way for me to know if that's
| actually the case, so I'm just holding on to my time capsule
| until some event triggers me to make a change.
| throwawayay02 wrote:
| What about first testing the health of the disk before creating
| more waste?
| tablespoon wrote:
| > What about first testing the health of the disk before
| creating more waste?
|
| Priorities. It's a fact of life that disks wear out and fail.
| If your priority is data integrity, relying on unreliable tests
| to try to cut down on e-waste contradicts that, since that
| greatly increases the chance you'll be caught flat-footed and
| lose data.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| I treat old disks like archive tapes. E.g. old 320GB laptop
| drives.
|
| - Copy data to them once.
|
| - Have redundant copies of data on multiple devices.
|
| - Once data is copied, catalog it, and put it on a shelf
| until needed.
|
| They're unlikely to die just sitting there without power, and
| multiple redundant copies should cover any issues with
| single-device failure.
| saurik wrote:
| Ok, but that isn't how an Apple Time Capsule works.
| katbyte wrote:
| Not applicable to time capsule but that's what raid is for.
| Have a number of 10 year old disks still going fine, and the
| ones that failed did so with a lot of warning.
| egeozcan wrote:
| It's not worth the stress of downloading the entire backup from
| your remote storage (hopefully you have one) if it unexpectedly
| fails. The removed hard disk can also still be put to use, for
| example, storing games.
| beached_whale wrote:
| You can reuse the drive in lower risk situations, such as
| temporary transfer storage.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| The risk of loss itself likely outweighs the efficiency
| benefits.
|
| Unfortunately, disk storage has a pronounced tendency to fail
| with _no_ warning whatsoever. The only real assurance is
| multiple independent archived copies. Keeping tabs on health
| reports is itself a rather error-prone procedure.
| vondur wrote:
| Mine ran well for like 4 years before it died. I've since move on
| to a Synology for local backup. I still miss the wifi from an
| Airport, they were really solid devices. I'm using a Asus Wifi
| router now, seems to work fine. I was interested in the Ubiquity
| wifi AP's but I remember them pulling some sort of shenanigans.
| tpowell wrote:
| I clung to my AirPort Extreme for years, and then an Eero Pro 5
| almost 10x'd my peak bandwidth. I felt like an idiot for not
| changing sooner. A set of three is like ~$250 on eBay now. I
| don't think the 6's are necessary unless you have/need a
| 500MB/s connection.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Same here. I've had my 3 AirPort Extremes since the Middle
| Ages, and just upgraded my house to Eero Pros (Gen 2, found
| cheaply). As for Wifi, things are just as fast for most of my
| user devices, BUT my HomeKit devices all now work all the
| time and respond almost instantly. This alone was worth the
| upgrade.
|
| I still have one AirPort Extreme set in Bridge Mode, and
| hardwired to the main router so that my Time Machine backups
| still work with the USB drive hooked to it.
| justusthane wrote:
| My parents are still using a 14+ year-old Airport for their
| wifi.
| mckeed wrote:
| Did the Time Machine system alert you when the drive failed?
| I'm wondering how important it is to proactively replace an old
| drive if it's just used for backup and I can deal with the risk
| of the drive failing at the exact same time as I lose the main
| copy of the data.
|
| I guess the question is how long of a time can there be between
| when some of the backup is not actually recoverable and when
| you find out that fact. Murphy's Law aside, I need to recover
| data from backup so infrequently - if the system regularly
| verifies the backup, I should be able to just wait for the
| drive to start failing, right?
| vondur wrote:
| No, the drive was making a clicking sound and I knew it was
| gone at that point. I don't know if they have Smart reporting
| built in, but it was basically working then immediately not
| working.
| givinguflac wrote:
| If you have a supported model, you should try out
| https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/
|
| You can do some fun things while keeping stock UI, like
| blocking ads network-wide.
| elsonrodriguez wrote:
| All my Time Machine backups over AFP and SMB eventually results
| in a corrupted backup set. Have you experienced this at all?
| yabones wrote:
| Time machine seems to be very good at eating itself. I think
| the longest I've seen somebody keep it going is 2-3 years,
| after that it just rots.
|
| For those with a little techie know-how, I think the best
| solution is to rsync their home directory to a ZFS volume on
| a TrueNAS box and take periodic snapshots of that. Optionally
| replicate that volume somewhere else with different geology.
| Obviously not as convenient as Time Machine, but undoubtedly
| more robust and less likely to corrupt itself.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| I've had no issues with Time Machine after about 9 years of
| continuous use. I've never tried to use the full-machine
| restore but I do restore individual files semi regularly.
| vondur wrote:
| I've since moved over to using rsync and not time machine.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Mine has been fine so far although the way it works (mounted
| virtual disk) does make me slightly uncomfortable.
| katbyte wrote:
| Is there anyway to tell if it's corrupted without doing a
| restore?
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mh26840/mac
| tclancy wrote:
| Apparently not related to the story, but the headline reminded me
| I recently considered if humanity was ever wiped out and the
| Earth went through a similar cycle that generated intelligent
| life again a million years from now, the first archaeologist to
| find a human time capsule is going to shit.
| pupppet wrote:
| Apple probably wasn't making a lot of money on these, but it was
| a good karma product.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Apple's failure/refusal to update the Time Capsule after 2013
| (2013!) is a weird stain on their carefully curated ecosystem.
|
| First they come out with Time Machine backups in late 2007, which
| is the most amazing file backup system ever made in terms of
| UI/X, come out with a tailored hardware platform for capturing
| those backups across all of your macs on a network, and
| then...not a goddamn thing except for breaking backups
| periodically. No reliability improvements. No compatibility
| improvements. Time Machine is still fucking weird and finicky and
| unreliable and randomly breaks after system updates, and it's
| still built into the OS, and Apple hasn't released a new first
| party product for using it with in ages, and it's still the most
| beautiful backup system ever made sitting there just taunting
| you.
|
| So people are left to set up their own NAS which fails 9 times
| out of 10, making the entire setup process annoying as hell: "Try
| this configuration tweak." "Nope, still doesn't work." "Does it
| say why?" "No." "Ok, try this one."
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| They replaced it with iCloud.
|
| I completely agree that a local NAS is different from and
| superior to an iCloud backup, but it's been replaced in their
| ecosystem.
| eric__cartman wrote:
| Apple probably realized that selling monthly, renewable
| subscriptions to "the cloud" allows them to squeeze more
| money out of their users than a one time sale of a NAS
| appliance.
| glhaynes wrote:
| Can't ignore the usage rates, too. How many Mac users keep
| regular backups by separately buying/setting up/maintaining
| extra equipment vs. how many iPhone/iPad users keep regular
| backups by opting into iCloud Backup at the prompt during
| setup?
|
| I don't have statistics on it but it seems very likely that
| the latter model gets _hugely_ more uptake.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I don't really use (or trust) mine for disk backup, but the print
| server in our blended environment with the 20+ year old HP 1200
| LaserJet (hooked up via a parallel port to usb cable) is a key
| piece of our household infrastructure.
| lozaning wrote:
| Im still happily running an xserve raid in the basement.
|
| If you throw in startech ide to sata adapters, theres just enough
| room to shove a 2.5" sata drive into the 3.5" sled along with the
| adapter.
| Thoreandan wrote:
| wow, I forgot that XServe RAID predated SATA.
| sneak wrote:
| Backblaze's $6/mo unlimited cloud backup is a much better option
| for most users than a local hard disk.
|
| Time Machine backups, even to a working hard disk, are
| notoriously unreliable.
| akeck wrote:
| Yup. A long time ago I did a full backup with Time Machine,
| then a DR (re-install and restore). Half my restored photos
| were zero length. Fortunately, I had a secondary backup. I've
| been using Carbon Copy Cloner since.
| sneak wrote:
| I like using rsync to backup:
|
| https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/hacks/src/branch/master/osxbackup/.
| ..
| natch wrote:
| I have two (redundant backups) chugging along fine. One of these
| days I'm going to replace at least one of the HDs with an 8TB
| drive. I don't think the suggestion in the article of using SSD
| is for me until prices come down more and capacities go way up.
| Never had a problem with the speed... and it just works. Have
| restored full and partial backups quite a few times.
|
| I hope people at least put their old units (sans hard drive or
| with data well wiped) on ebay or craigslist instead of trashing
| them.
| ketralnis wrote:
| > The last model, the 802.11ac numbered A1470, is now more than
| three years old, and the risks of its hard disk failing are
| climbing every day
|
| I'm increasingly disillusioned with this world of hardware
| costing hundreds of dollars being considered geriatric at 3 years
| old. Requiring constant replacements mean that you don't really
| own anything, you're renting your whole life. And since new
| hardware only supports new software, it keeps you stuck on the
| software treadmill too.
|
| The article isn't wrong, it's a real problem of cheap mechanical
| drives. But it's not okay.
| beermonster wrote:
| You can always replace the disks. Other than issues around the
| firmware no longer being updated, putting a new HDD in is not
| hard. Lots of guides online as referenced in this article
| [deleted]
| dijit wrote:
| > it's a real problem of cheap mechanical drives.
|
| Fair. But the drives in time capsules are not cheap (not the
| most expensive either, but certainly not cheap).
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _The last model, the 802.11ac numbered A1470, is now more
| than three years old...considered geriatric at 3 years old_
|
| That model was released in 2013. The very last one ever made is
| more than three years old, but the rest are on average _much_
| older.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| OOohhh...eight year old hardware. Spoooky! Carefully, now,
| put that in a museum!
|
| Seriously, though, we need to rethink the expected lifetime
| of products we buy. I live in a relatively new house for my
| neighborhood, it was built in 1972. I drive a 2008 Toyota. My
| desk has a sticker under it from 1993. The lamp over my head
| has a new-ish LED bulb in it, but the casting and glass are
| from the 1950s. My computer is a workstation from 2012, with
| a couple larger sticks of RAM and a pair of large SSDs it's
| as good as or better than most new machines. My phone is 2
| years old now with no signs of wear, previously I had an LG
| G5 with a trivially swappable battery but the connectors and
| clips that held the modular design together wore out and LG
| stopped selling the OEM batteries.
|
| Some of this disposable product culture results from
| obsolescence, tech is getting better and while my old
| Crestoloy wrench is just as good as new tool steel a router
| or hard drive from a decade ago is not as good as a new one,
| that's reasonable. What's unreasonable is that a three-year
| warranty, or mechanical designs that wear out in slightly
| more than that, is considered acceptable. And why, when the
| product does wear out, is it glued and clipped together in
| ways that make it unrepairable?
| gruez wrote:
| >I'm increasingly disillusioned with this world of hardware
| costing hundreds of dollars being considered geriatric at 3
| years old. Requiring constant replacements mean that you don't
| really own anything, you're renting your whole life.
|
| So... like most things in life? Off the top of my head:
|
| * house: you're either renting it or paying property
| tax/maintenance on it
|
| * car: maintenance
|
| * food: you can only eat it once!
|
| * smartphones: battery wears out
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Information record media itself should be durable.
|
| Digital informatioin storage has represented a compromise
| between _speed and flexibility of access_ against _durability
| of media_. It stands in marked contrast with numerous other
| examples. Commercial CDs last decades --- I have several
| which are among the first produced in the mid-1980s, which
| still play perfectly. Vinyl and shellac records go back 60--
| 100+ years. I 've numerous decades-old books and at least one
| volume within easy reach dating to 1897, I suspect there are
| older in the house. With suitable preservation, paper books
| last centuries and there are extant copies of the first
| moveable-type texts ever printed, over 500 years old. Papyrus
| and clay tablets date back millennia.
|
| We can do better than three years. A suitable durable digital
| archival format is badly needed.
| gruez wrote:
| >Commercial CDs last decades
|
| > Vinyl and shellac records go back 60--100+ years
|
| >decades-old books and at least one volume within easy
| reach dating to 1897
|
| These aren't comparable to hard drives because they're all
| mass produced copies of a master. Hard drives can be
| arbitrarily written with whatever data you desire.
|
| >We can do better than three years
|
| tapes? optical discs? they last longer than hard drives,
| but have other trade-offs.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > I'm increasingly disillusioned with this world of hardware
| costing hundreds of dollars being considered geriatric at 3
| years old. Requiring constant replacements mean that you don't
| really own anything, you're renting your whole life.
|
| HDDs have always been considered a wearable part. SSDs are
| better but their lifespan also has a limit.
|
| It's actually a selling point for things like OneDrive,
| operating your own file share has costs too, might as well
| shift these capex to opex.
|
| > And since new hardware only supports new software, it keeps
| you stuck on the software treadmill too.
|
| Part of the reasons is supporting older hardware requires back-
| porting changes. Or having N different versions of the same
| product in flight at all times.
|
| There's a good reason some businesses are moving toward SaaS.
| beermonster wrote:
| You can build your own SMB based one using Samba.
|
| You can also build your own AFP based one using atalk but I
| believe that's the deprecated choice these days.
|
| I use Time Machine to locally connected APFS+ but would be
| interested to hear of LAN based configurations optimised for
| performance as non locally connected were always far slower even
| on g/bit switched
| jandrese wrote:
| I've been running an AFP one on my NAS for a few years now and
| it has been a regular headache as Apple breaks it with OS
| updates periodically.
|
| Even worse is that Apples diagnostics are woefully inadequate
| with missing/useless error messages which makes it much harder
| to get working again.
| testfoobar wrote:
| NAS+[Samba|AFP]+Time Machine has been consistently unstable for
| me. I could not make it work reliably. My remote backups would
| regularly be corrupted. YMMV.
| graeme wrote:
| Anyone know how to wipe one? Have an old one but can't get it to
| show in airport express. Don't want to disconnect my whole
| internet and set up time capsule just to get it in airport but is
| that the only way?
|
| Was planning to recycle with Apple if I can't wipe it.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| The little reset hole in the bottom/back. Hold it for 20
| seconds while it is powered up.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Smash it to pieces with a hammer.
| ksec wrote:
| When Apple launched the 5th Generation Time Capsule in 2013, it
| was a 802.11ac Router with 3TB of HDD for $399.
|
| 8 years later a 4TB HDD still cost about $100. And reliability
| has dropped.
|
| A lot of my friends simply have a USB Portable HDD as Backup (
| more like storage ). Their idea is that it is safer on a HDD than
| it is on their Phone which constantly run out of space. I keep
| telling my friends, to have multiple copies. I cant explain bit
| rot, HDD failure, crappy USB power supply, or all other major
| fuckery that could happen. And not everyone "likes" the cloud.
| And not everyone are comfortable with "subscriptions". And no one
| wants to understand why they need to pay more for a BTRFS NAS
| that offer some form of Bit-rot Protection and redundancy.
|
| And whenever these thing are discussed you have another camp, the
| nerds, who keep telling normal user about rsync or 3-2-1 backup
| strategy.
|
| There is a need for a simple easy to use system. Apple could have
| had a Time Capsule for iOS and could offer iCloud Backup Restore
| as extra option for additional piece of mind. But of course, that
| doesn't sit well with their services strategy.
| ElFitz wrote:
| A funny thing was all you used to be able to do with an Airport /
| TimeCapsule & macOS Server.
|
| Suddenly, you had a whole new world of features. Like RADIUS
| authentication using macOS Server's (unreliable) Open Directory,
| directly managing the Airport's firewall settings & port
| forwarding for your exposed services (website, wiki, email,
| XMPP,...)
|
| Such a tight and honestly well done integration. It was fun!
|
| Although ultimately useless since, well... what company would
| rely on AirPorts for their network & on macOS Server for their
| online services?
|
| Case in point, macOS server got rid of most of these services in
| the past few years.
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