HOW TO SET UP NETWORKED TIME MACHINE BACKUPS FOR A HOUSEHOLD
Apple’s Time Capsule base station put a Wi-Fi access point, a network router, and a backup drive that tied into Time Machine all in a single box. That was its downfall, too: If the drive failed or became corrupted, you had relatively few options. Apple stopped selling Time Capsule devices in 2018, and many readers still miss them.
You can simulate a Time Capsule if you have a desktop Mac that’s always on and has a robust network connection. There are a few asides:
→ You can use network-attached storage (NAS), but not all NAS systems support Time Machine. I’ve also heard many stories of inconsistent performance.
→ Your computer acting as a networked Time Machine destination doesn’t have to be on all the time. But it does mean that computer, when it is on, will spend more of its active time performing backups, catching up for when it’s turned off.
A Mac laptop can work perfectly well as a networked Time Machine destination, but if you take it somewhere else, put it to sleep, or unplug it from battery power, backups
