I wanted to compare the speed of the hard drive connected directly to my MacBook via USB 3.0 and connected to the Airport Extreme via USB 2.0. As these are mechanical hard drives, I expect them to be the limiting factor when directly connected to my MacBook. Apple External Hard Disk Drives; Skip to page navigation. Filter (1) Apple External Hard Disk Drives. 1TB Time Capsule 802.11n Wi-Fi Hard Drive Backup for MAC MB277LL/A. Apple Time Capsule 2TB HD A1355 Wireless-N Router And Airport EXTREME A1408.
I need to backup all my computer data. I'm thinking of buying 3 External Hard Drives and connect them to Airport Extreme. Can I do this?
chefnelonechefnelone
4 Answers
The constraint is be the number of ports available on your USB hub.
Any connected hard drives should appear in Mac OS X. Use a self-powered usb hub and connect hard drives your hub. Only then will multiple external drives have enough power to run.
Also see store.apple.com for related questions.
gentmattgentmattAs shown on the Apple website, the Airport Extreme has only one USB port:
However, you can use a USB hub to connect multiple devices to it.
(I also wouldn't be surprised if Apple eventually creates a Thunderbolt-compatible version of the Airport Extreme — and Thunderbolt devices can be daisy-chained, so you might be able to connect more than one hard drive at a time.)
For a single hard drive, you might also like the Time Capsule which has an integrated hard drive.
For a more flexible and heavy-duty solution for multiple drives, you could use something like Drobo.
jtbandesjtbandesYes you can - Apple's web site says 'multiple printers, multiple hard drives' and mentions using them with a USB hub.
Don't expect fancy NAS or RAID features though, you will just be able to share the existing partitions.
Adam EberbachAdam EberbachHow To Format External Hard Drive For Mac
The problem is how much power USB on the Airport Extreme supplies.
If you had one external drive, then 2.5 inch drives will be fine with the power they get, 3.5 inch drives usually are not. I had one drive that came with a special USB cable with two connectors, one for data + power, the other to get a bit more power. That won't work obviously.
For multiple drives, you need a hub. For multiple drives without their own power supply, you will need a POWERED USB hub, that is a USB hub with its own power plug. Be careful when you order one, because some people sell their unpowered hubs as 'USB POWERED', which means it tries to get its power from the Airport Extreme USB port. That's not going to work.
If you buy 3.5 inch drives that usually come with their own power supply, they might be fine with an unpowered hub, but I wouldn't take the risk and get a powered hub.
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Best External Hard Drive For Mac
Joy Joy wrote:
I bought an imac a few weeks ago, and wanted to set up a network for all the computers in the house. I just got an airport extreme and an external hard drive with the intent of creating a time machine for the imac and a storage place for the media in itunes and movies that would be accessed across the network by all the computers. So I hooked up the extreme and got the wireless network working fine, and all the computers are accessed on the network and working fine. But when I tried to hook up the hard drive, it wouldn't recognize it on the imac (which I have set up as a central computer). I reformatted the hard drive by plugging it directly into the mac and it recognized it without a problem. I then tried to plug it into the extreme and it won't even show up as recognizing it. I went under preferences, and have to to show in the side bar, and all that jazz, but it just won't work. I did try to hook up the printer to the extreme, and it worked without a problem. I have even tried to restart the computer, thinking that would make a difference. So far, no luck. I would really appreciate any help anyone can give me with this problem. Thanks!
Joy.
did you format the drive for Mac ?
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