Using USB Hard Drives on the Apple Airport Extreme 802.11n

[enduser1980]

Awesome videos, one quick question:

I have the airport extreme and i'm going to attach an external drive to it, I was thinking about getting a WD My Book Live connected via ethernet, or is this setup redundant? Could I just use a regular external HD and connect via USB? The important thing for me is WOL (wake on lan), because my ATV2 will be reading media from this drive having the external that is connected to the Airport automatically turn on is really importan.

Any help would be great

[datg1234]

how do you find the hard drive on windows7?



[Atlanta15Braves]

rooter? I am assuming that you mean ROUTER lol

[TalesOfWar]

@Atlanta15Braves We say "rooter" in the UK, a "row-ter" is something you cut wood with to make grooves and stuff lol.

[tiznado22]

great video. just what i was searching for. one question:

can the airport extreme work with the ps3? can the ps3 find it to play video files? Thanks

[Tjmarkson]

I got my Airport Extreme 5th Generation yesterday. I attached a USB drive and Printer using a hub. The drive was showing up in the Airport utility but I could not figure out how to access it. Finally after seeing you just goto Finder I found my USB drive. Thanks very much.

[thinkourlife]

I have a question Can I plug in my broadband to the usb port on the apple airport coz at home I'm only use broadband to surf to the internet. I do Internet Sharing on my mac as server but yet.. not that awesome.. ping me up because I'm going to buy this soon!

[james95121]

For some reason I can't see my hard drive on finder although airport utility does

[MacGeek35]

Dont you think USB is slow though??

[iftibashir]

@MacGeek35 - It is, which is why I use these drives via FireWire or eSATA if possible. Nevertheless, Ive upgraded my setup with a NAS - see my other videos!

[AnimalCrossingCool4]

4TB!? That's a beast!

[brace110]

Please answer this,

If I put movies on my external hard disk and connect it to a Airport extreme, will I be able to view and play the files on my PC that is connected to only wifi. (and power)

[iftibashir]

@brace110 - Yes, it will be like a shared drive - you could map a new drive to the external HDD via the AEBS and access it wirelessly. Whether you can play the movie depends on the quality of the movie and your wireless speed.....I regularly play 720p movies over my Wireless N network perfectly fine ;o)

[lHenry97]

Can you use this as a backup hardrive? I don't know because I'm PC user but I want to buy the next gen macbook pro

[skittb89]

good review but there is one thing i wonder.. if you connect a USB drive to your airport extreme, what are the read/write speeds? are they the same as connecting it directly to your Mac's USB (60 MB/s) or is it slower then that?

[iftibashir]

@skittb89 - Speeds are around the same. If accessing wirelessly etc, then speed will be slower depending on your wireless connection speed. I no longer use this setup, but use a NAS instead - see my others videos for details!

[ktownskates]

4TB Jesus Christ that thing is gigantic.

[kamilmytnik]

I thought Airport Extreme routers only had ONE usb port? What model is that with 2 in the front???

[iftibashir]

@kamilmytnik - Thats a Belkin Mac Mini USB Hub - It has 2 USB ports at the front and 2 in the back. Simply connect to the Airport Extreme Base Station and voila, you have 4 USB ports!

[thefruittoast]

I am thinking of getting a similar setup, can you connect an external hard drive with ethernet cable to the Airport Extreme? (Like the WD My Book Live). Am thinking of using it for scheduled back ups mostly.

Nice vid and good tip, thanks.

[iftibashir]

@thefruittoast - You can only connect an external drive with ethernet if it supports network protocols - like a NAS for example. If the drive has an ethernet port on the rear, it most likely does so you will be fine.

[Digikid2007]

It is not pronounced ROO TER. It is pronounced ROUTE-R

[mervynreece]

Hi, nice vid. A quick question if you will. Is the set-up any different if the router is a non airport extreme or even a time capsule. I have a 2TB HD and want it to be used by about 12 mac's wirelessly for read/ write purposes. Any ideas? Thanks.

[iftibashir]

@offeredpk - I have a 2TB drive connected to mine and it works fine. Check the format of the 1TB Drive and make sure its HFS+. Ive had my Extreme a while and never bothered updating it!

[mutantenemy2008]

Hi, could you tell me what make/model those two usb drives are?

[iftibashir]

@mutantenemy2008 - Western Digital My Passport Studio Edition - both 640GB. More expensive then standard My Passport drives due to the e-Label and Firewire800 port...

[dblack34]

The Western Digital drives sleep too often and take too long to wake up. Try using "Keep Drive Spinning" program to keep the drive awake.

[SomeDudeUK]

Sorry if this is a totally retarded question.

But say for instance I put my whole iTune Library on an external Hard Drive and connect that to an AirPort Extreme. Then go in iTunes and tell it that i want that to be my source, Could this be done on several Mac's? Such as an iMac and MacBook? Cause that Whole Home sharing thing doesn't Quite work to how i want it to.

Sorry to be awkward.

Great Video by the way.

:)

[iftibashir]

@SomeDudeUK - Ive never tried this myself, but yes I dont see why this wouldnt work. Drive would always need to be connected obviously.

[SomeDudeUK]

@iftibashir Just to let you know. Bought the Airport Extreme and hooked up my 2TB drive with my iTunes library and it works great. Freed up USB ports on my iMac to.

Airport Extreme is AMAZING lol.

Thanks :)

[dblack34]

@SomeDudeUK You can open the same library on multiple computers, but from personal experience, I would recommend against doing this. If both comps. have the library open at once, you easily corrupt the iTunes Library file. A better solution is to use one library, and use library sharing (not home sharing) to listen to it on the other computer. If you really need to make changes to the library, open it on one computer and then use Screen Sharing to control the other computer to make changes.

[UrosR]

How does it work if you go away and try to access your USB drive connected to the AE over the internet? Does it show up the same way?

[iftibashir]

@UrosR - This is for internal network use only, not from an external source.

[UrosR]

@iftibashir well..the apple.com webpage says that you access the USB drive over the internet from practically anywhere...that's why I'm asking.

[iftibashir]

@UrosR - Ah, Ive never read that. There certainly isnt anything Ive seen in the Airport Utility that sets this up.....

[dermith]

@iftibashir You need a Mobileme account to share the HD over internet.

[lsufan861]

@dermith I'm having problems accessing the hard drive via my mobile me account.

[Master1Samsung]

@iftibashir i love your voice and demeanour, its very professional

[dermith]

@UrosR You need a Mobileme account to share the HD over internet.

[reibejoy]

Too bad that you did not copy any files over... I really would like to see how YOUR speed and experience is. Mine is incredibly slow.. I would go as far as to say that it's rendered useless. The HDD is formatted with FAT32 (need for windows access as well) and works just fine & fast if hooked up to the mac directly.

[iftibashir]

@reibejoy - Hmmm, on second thoughts I should have included that in the video. All of my clients connect via Wireless N on the 5GHz band. The file transfer speeds I get with a drive connected to the Airport Extreme are just as fast as if the drive was connected to my system directly via USB. All my drives are formatted as HFS+. Maybe thats why yours are slower via the AE? I regularly transfer large amounts of data via the AE perfectly fine. If I need faster speeds I connect directly via FireWire

[iftibashir]

@BlackCoffee1995 - I cant remember, but send me your email address and I'll send it across to you if you want?