Seagate also separates SATA drives into several product lines, based on various factors (such as intended market or controller board generation for example, at the time of this writing Seagate had four product lines for its AS-series 3.5' drives: 7200.9, 7200.10, 7200.12). Specifically, Seagate offers two categories for its 3.5' SATA drives: AS and NS (you can tell which category a Seagate drive belongs to by looking at the end of its model number, which will end in one of those two suffixes). The vast majority of laptops and desktops being sold today use SATA hard drives, but many low- and mid-range servers offer them as well. While they're a direct successor to ATA, their enhanced performance and simplified interface connection has expanded their role in computing. Thus, I think it's fair to say that any SAS drive could be safely called 'server-grade.' SAS drives work best in RAID arrays, not as single drives, so it's quite rare to see them used in workstations. The latter two have some interoperability (SATA drives will work with SAS controllers and SAS drive backplanes, and many low-end SAS drives are actually SATA models with a few changes to their controller boards), and both are quickly taking over as the interface of choice in servers. There are four choices of interface that you can choose from when buying a hard drive from Seagate (or most other brands): ATA (also called IDE) SCSI Serial ATA (SATA) and SAS (Serial Attached SCSI). Seagate ST3500630NS SATA hard drive, as found in the 500GB Time Capsule.

Apple markets the drives in the two Time Capsule models as 'server-grade ' I've read a number of blog posts claiming that these models don't qualify as being 'server-grade.' So, perhaps to throw some logic into the argument, let's take a closer look at the 500GB Seagate drive that Apple uses.įigure 1. Unfortunately, the airflow through the case still seems to be pretty poor, so when the hard drive has been running for a while (say, during Time Machine's initial backup), the fan ultimately needs to run full speed and is thus quite noisy.ĭepending on the model of Time Capsule you buy, you'll end up with one of two drive models: a 500GB Seagate ST3500630NS or 1TB Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000. The unit has air vents around its base, and has an internal fan, in an effort to keep the hard drive cool.

All of the Ethernet ports are of the gigabit variety, as large backups over 100Mbit would be, well, unbearable. The firmware for the Time Capsule is set up to dedicate the internal drive solely for Time Machine. It is, more or less, an AirPort Extreme base station with an internal single-channel SATA bus. I lived with the noise, and worried about the hard drive's longevity due to the heat it produced, for about nine months before deciding to do something about it.įirst, some background on the Time Capsule's innards. My Time Capsule sits on my desk I didn't want to stuff it in a corner somewhere, as I didn't want to reduce its wireless range (especially since there are no external antenna ports to which I could attach high-gain antennas, as I had with my previous Linksys wireless router). When I got it home and set it up, it worked perfectly, except I soon realized that the internal hard drive, which Apple calls 'server-grade,' was fairly noisy and ran hot. I picked up a 500GB model as soon as they hit store shelves I could have opted for the 1TB unit, but felt that almost $500 for it was a bit excessive. It even sports a USB 2.0 port for connecting a printer or external hard drive to share over the network. Overall, Time Capsule is a great product - a draft-802.11n wireless router, 3-port gigabit Ethernet switch, and hard drive all in one compact unit. It would work with Time Machine, the built-in backup software in OS X 10.5, to quietly and seamlessly back up the hard drives in both my own and my wife's Macs. When Apple's Time Capsule - a wireless router with a built-in hard drive - was announced at the 2008 Macworld Expo, I knew I needed one. It's not that I didn't care about my data I simply didn't have the time to spend to set up a full backup solution. Maybe once a year I'd burn a DVD with my most important files and stick it in a drawer somewhere, but that was about all the more protection I gave myself against data loss. Like most computer users, I used to only back up my data occasionally (if ever).

Time capsule user guide