Time Capsule and Noise 2
I bought a 1 terrabyte Time Capsule last night- with over 14,000 digital photos, it's nice to know that the pictorial history of my kids' childhoods (so far) is safer than it used to be.
Before I bought it, I googled far and wide to find some comment about how loud Time Capsule was. That's especially important to me since, first, I have an amazing (and amazingly infuriating) ability to pick out white noise from appliances in otherwise silent situations, and, second, the Time Capsule was to be located just a few feet from my bed. Despite my attempts, I wasn't able to locate anything except anecdotal reports like "it's very silent", or "I can barely hear it"- I wasn't able to find an opinion from anyone who said they were as sensitive to that type of white noise as I am.
I decided to take a chance and bought it anyway, thinking I could relocate it (or return it) if the noise proved to be a problem. When I got it home and powered it up, disappointment hit almost immediately because I could clearly make out the noise from the Time Capsule, even when my G5 was powered up right next to it. When I put the G5 to sleep, it sounded like a model plane was idling in my bedroom.
Oh well, I thought, I'll let the first backup run overnight (I'll get to sleep somehow, I thought), then I'd think about where I could relocate the Time Capsule.
This morning, when I awoke, I immediately noticed that there was no white noise. Apparently, the Time Capsule engineers had the good sense to spin down the hard drive after some period of inactivity. So I don't think the noise will be a problem for my sleeping, because all the Time Capsule client machines will be sleeping at night too, so the Time Capsule should be silent.
Just thought I'd write about it here in case there are other noise freaks like me thinking of buying a Time Capsule. :-)
Comments
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Wonderful min-review! I'm sensitive as you are to noise-- returned a Mac SE because of its whine, had to relocate a TiVo to the basement because it kept me up at night, etc. Now that you've had it a while, what's the noise level like? For example, when it's doing an automatic backup and when it's merely idling? Does it go to sleep? If not the Time Capsule, do you have a recommendation of a different very quiet external hard drive? I picked up a Mercury-Elite drive from OWC, reportedly quiet and it was NOT. It has a high pitched whine noise. A Fantom drive was quite quiet, and goes to sleep quickly and stays there. But, after 4+ years, it's doing the old start up rumba--a sure sign of a failing drive.
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@paul - noise level is still pretty offensive when it's backing up. Idling it's completely silent because the disk is spun down, and there are no other moving parts.
