Backup, backup, backup.  Then verify your backups.  Its what separates the noobs from the seasoned professionals.  Seriously.  My Time Capsulehas served me well with two MacBooks in my household.  Backups just happen automatically, and on the one occasion where I had to do a restore…it worked flawlessly.  Even the desktop icons were in the same spot!

[tangent: this isn’t very impressive from a programming point-of-view but the desktop is the first thing users see, so well done Apple.]

My backups started failing and when navigating to the Time Capsule I couldn’t connect to the drive. And yes, I turned if off and on again…

via GIPHY

Out of Apple Care and three years is the life-span for consumer electronics these days anyway. Plus with Apple supposedly Abandoning Development of Wireless Routers, what do I replace it with?

Heard good things about QNAP and Synology products, the QNAP TS-431+ 4-bay fit my price point and and has a lengthly list of features.  I chose a couple of 4TB Western Digital Reddrives via this curve.

The user interface is quite nice and TimeMachine is working like clockwork again and backing up a Windows PC is also possible.