Can an Airport Time Capsule (7.9.1) provide reliable wifi connectivity for a 2024 MacBook Air M3?

Zurarczurx wrote:

I just had a look at the Dream Router. There's bugger-all information on the site with superficial tech-specs and no downloadable manual - indeed there's no manual at all apparently. Contrast that with the 760-page manual that's online for my Draytek router. Also, it's not clear from answers on various websites whether or not a Ubiquity account is needed to operate the router. That's a huge red flag for me. So, no manual and possible mandatory account means that I wouldn't buy anything from Ubiquity.

Red flags? Don’t look at Apple, then. (Either around requiring vendor accounts, or around the increasingly-superficial docs. We’re not in the same era as the old Apple Mac OS X Server detailed docs and the Xserve DIY repair docs, either.)

As for Ubiquiti gear and docs, the Unifi Portal app provides some online doc (via GPT), and the /r/ubiquiti subreddit (where Ubiquiti participates) is useful, and an immense number of UI YouTube videos. And the user interfaces are usually pretty good, same as Apple.

As with many (most) other vendors, UI also has online support, as well as support plans, as well as in-person classes. And the usual zillion articles and postings from ~everybody.

One of the sections I’ve just noticed in the Portal app is a “what equipment do I need to get started?” section. Which then uses that as the GPT prompt. Not sure how useful the Portal app might be past that, though.

One of the earlier installation roadblocks deploying Ubiquiti gear involved MAC impersonation. I asked about that apparent omission, and a month or so later the feature appeared in a new build. Coincidence? Or responsiveness? Donno.

Remote network access is available, but is configurable and is not required. And yes, remote access is tied to a Ubiquiti account.

You’ll need the UI account for updates, for remote access, and it makes purchases and related details easier.

Once I got past the MAC impersonation, it’s all been solid. Incrementally adding gear has been easy, as well.

Ubiquiti has a good reputation for quality overall. Asus and eero also have well-regarded mesh network devices (at least according to The Wirecutter).

Nowithstanding John Galt's understandable personal grudge with Synology, they have some decently regarded NAS - although the top pick this year is QNAP (again, according to The Wirecutter's reviews). I won't argue, as I've been a long-time QNAP user. But full transparency, that was a matter of luck, when the first time I went NAS hunting I found a readily available QNAP and Synology was out of stock where I was buying. Now I'm comfortable enough with that system that I likely wouldn't change unless I had an experience like Mr. Galt had with his Synology.

All that commentary aside, an external SSD is more than adequate for backups. The value of a NAS is in all teh other things it can do beyond just hosting a backup drive. File and media servers, redundancy and RAID data protection, multiple user accounts and disk quotas...but that only matters if those are features you need or want.

Don't let my personal bias against Synology affect your decision. It was a very long time ago. I just happen to have a very long memory.

For all I know they fixed everything by now, but it was a very common and frequently reported problem back then. Those reports are all over this site if you want to search for them.

Its manifestation was that TM backups would run perfectly with no apparent faults for months or years on end, but attempting to restore failed. Users were understandably upset, because were relying on those backups, believing they were intact, and they blamed Time Machine for their failures. So did Synology.

Meanwhile my TM restores from Time Capsule or other supported methods were 100% flawless. Contrast that with 100% restore failures from Synology, and it didn't take much for me to give up on them. It did however take a lot of time to troubleshoot and arrive at that conclusion.

One more thing... those failures were strictly attempting to use the Synology NAS with Time Machine. To my knowledge you could use Carbon Copy Cloner (or something else) and they would work. I had used CCC in the past but not with NAS devices. CCC is a fine program.

Ah, thank you.

Still won’t recommend Apple Wi-Fi gear in 2025, though.