Issues persist after months of complaints

Apple's Time Capsule network drives are still suffering from power failures, complaints on official support forums indicate. The failures are allegedly occurring without warning, and are thought to be attributable to faulty power supplies, though some owners have suggested problems with chips or connectors. Most at risk are older drives, as a number of the dead units are said to have been bought in early 2008. Apple last refreshed its Time Capsule line in July.

The errors are an unusually serious issue due to many drives containing critical backup data. Genius technicians are accused of compounding the issue, offering to repair drives for as much as $499, without an option to have the data transferred to another Capsule or hard drive. It may in fact be cheaper for the technically savvy to buy a new Capsule, and replace its drive with the older one.

Choosing to repair may also require manually wiping personal information, or trusting Apple to properly destroy an old drive. Despite promises, workers could in theory keep a unit to steal sensitive content. Apple has not so far commented on Time Capsule problems or offered an explanation.

by MacNN Staff