NAS devices aren’t cheap, but they’re flexible-you can have a large amount of fast, local storage tucked away somewhere in your house to store files that don’t fit on your Mac’s hard drive. Ideally, a NAS will also be able to back itself up to the cloud. Wirecutter has a nice NAS roundup, and you’ll find that many NAS devices support Time Machine. These are essentially giant hard drives with small embedded computers that act as servers when you put them on your local network. That said, if you want a local backup server, your best option is to buy a NAS, short for network-attached storage. Backing up to the cloud keeps your data regardless of natural disasters, and has other advantages including being able to retrieve any backed up file from anywhere. A Time Machine backup has the advantage of being fast and on your local network, but if something catastrophic happens to your home or office, you will lose your backup. Very convenient, especially if your primary device is a MacBook! Here’s what I’d say: You’re better off backing up remotely to a cloud-based service like Backblaze, which is The Wirecutter’s pick.

What about the Time Capsule? When it launched, it was the definitive way to back up your Macs without plugging in an external hard drive. Mesh networks can be pricier than just buying a single router, and they are not always available in all territories, but my setup experience was easy, the connection is solid, and all the wireless dead zones in my house have vanished. (Consider this a disclaimer, as Eero continues to be a podcast sponsor of mine.) Later, as part of a podcast sponsorship deal, I got some Eero mesh-networking equipment, which I’ve been using ever since. In fact, I was so unhappy with my Wirecutter-recommended Netgear router that I turned off its wireless features and returned a previous-generation AirPort Extreme base station to service for a while. Wirecutter really seems to love Netgear hardware, which I’ve had mixed results with. My friend Marco Arment recommends Ubiquiti networking hardware for true nerds, and Eero for everyone else. I’d also strongly recommend reading the Wirecutter reviews of Wi-Fi routers and mesh networking kits. So what now? When the news broke yesterday I heard from a lot of people who relied on Apple’s AirPort routers, not just for their home wi-fi, but for unique features like wireless audio out and wireless Time Machine backups.Īlways ahead of the curve, last year Glenn Fleishman wrote a piece about this at Macworld. On Thursday Apple made official what we’ve all known since 2016-it’s out of the business of building Wi-Fi hardware. Warning: This story has not been updated in several years and may contain out-of-date information.

The wirecutter mesh wifi