Apple Time Capsule offers wireless backup to 1TB drive

Apple today introduced Time Capsule, a backup appliance that automatically and wirelessly backs up everything on one or more Macs running Leopard, the latest release of Apple’s Mac OS(R) X operating system.

Time Capsule combines an 802.11n base station with a server grade hard disk in one small package. Time Capsule offers a full-featured 802.11n Wi-Fi base station, and comes in two models: a 500 gigabyte model for just $299 and a 1 terabyte model for just $499.

“Bring Time Capsule home, plug it in, click a few buttons on your Macs and voila — all the Macs in your house are being backed up automatically, every hour of every day,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With Time Capsule and Time Machine, all your irreplaceable photos, movies and documents are automatically protected and incredibly easy to retrieve if they are ever lost.”

Built to work seamlessly with Time Machine, Time Capsule lets users wirelessly back up all of the data on their Macs, find lost files and even restore all of their software. In the event a file is lost, users can wirelessly search back through time to find deleted files, applications, photos and other digital media and then instantly restore the file. If it’s ever necessary, Leopard can also easily restore an entire system from the Time Machine backup on Time Capsule.

Additional Time Capsule features include:
— dual-band antennas for 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz frequencies;
— three Gigabit LAN ports;
— one Gigabit Ethernet WAN port;
— one USB 2.0 port;
— Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA/WPA-2), 128-bit WEP encryption;
— a built-in NAT firewall supporting NAT-PMP for features like Back to My Mac.

Time Capsule will be available in February.