Time Capsule

Hi, I'm considering getting the above and was wondering about a few things:

1. Am I right in saying that if my Mac's HDD fails I can simply install a new one, install the OS and then press "Restore" or something and all my files will magically come back?

2. Are the files stored in an Apple format thus cannot be read by any other OS like Windows incremental block based backup?

3. I have a Sky router (NETGEAR), do I simply disable the wireless on that and then plug the Time Machine via Ethernet into it. Then use the Time Machine's Airport connection for my computers?

Thanks.

1) yes, pretty much.

1. In theory yes but keep in mind things don't always go to plan; having more than one back up of anything you can not afford to lose is worth doing. For example I prefer to store music & films on a separate disk and private documents zipped & password protected on MobileMe.

2. I don't know about Windows but the files are arranged conducive to being accessed by Time Machine.app but worse case you can still go deeper into the folder structure to manually pull out any files you need.

3. Yes when there are more wireless access points in very close proximity it's generally good practice to choose just one and disable the other(s) to avoid interference on the channel. I would suggest putting the Netgear into modem mode (192.168.0.1/mode.htm) and setting up Time Capsule to be the DHCP router as well as wireless access point.

Edited by deleted (Sun 22-Feb-09 10:28:49)

Thanks.