Apple Airport Extreme/Express

[toasty]

Re: Apple Airport Extreme/Express

For anyone thinking of doing this, highly, highly recommended. At least twice as fast as my old g network, and the sound quality beaming songs around the house is actually better than I expected. Great products, both of them...

[feather]

Re: Apple Airport Extreme/Express

So can you use Airport Extreme + external hdd as an NAS, or is it automated to work only with Time Machine for system backups?

[toasty]

Re: Apple Airport Extreme/Express

honestly, I haven't had a chance to give that a whirl yet -- I need to grab a power strip to free up outlet space near the base station for the drive -- but my understanding from the documentation is that either works. I'll let you know, though, as I should have it up and running by Friday at the latest...

[feather]

Re: Apple Airport Extreme/Express

Sweet thanks, if it works as a normal drag-and-drop file NAS + Time Machine + router + music stream ... this is just about perfect

[feather]

Re: Apple Airport Extreme/Express

I think it does work for normal file sharing.

Sharing and Securing USB Hard Disks on Your AirPort Extreme
Base Station

If you connect a USB hard disk to your AirPort Extreme Base Station, computers connected to the network, both wireless and wired, can use it to back up, store, and share files.

To share a USB hard disk on you network:

1 Plug the hard disk into the USB port on the back of the base station.

2 Open AirPort Utility, located in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder on a Mac, and in Start > All Programs > AirPort on a computer using Windows

3 Select your base station, and then choose Manual Setup from the Base Station menu, or double-click the base station to open its configuration in a separate window. Enter the base station password if necessary.

4 Click Disks in the toolbar, and then click File Sharing.

5 Choose “With a disk password,” or “With base station password” if you want to secure the shared disk with a password, or choose “With accounts” if you want to secure the disk using accounts.

If you choose to use accounts, click Configure Accounts, click the Add (+) button, and then enter a name and password for each user that will access the disk.

6 Choose “Not allowed,” “Read only,” or “Read and write” to assign guest access to the disk.

7 Select the “Share disks over Ethernet WAN port” checkbox if you want to provide remote access to the disk over the WAN port.

[toasty]

Re: Apple Airport Extreme/Express

I went ahead and attached a bus-powered drive to the base (Extreme) and it works like a champ as a file sharing drive. Great thing is that that is the drive I use for storage of all my tunes, and iTunes still recognizes it as such even though it is no longer connected directly to my MB -== notwithstanding that I didn't do shit other than just plug it in.

FYI, the Express can be used for network printing, but not for network drives -- the drive has to be used on the Extreme. Will report back after I get the TM drive attached, to confirm that it works for that, too...

[feather]

Re: Apple Airport Extreme/Express

Airport Extreme Base costs AUD249 ... wondering if there is a more economical option. Maybe a wireless modem/router + NAS with built-in BT downloader.

[jeffrey collins]

Re: Apple Airport Extreme/Express

Wow. that Airport seems like it's a good 4-5 steps ahead of all other routers. No wonder it costs so much more. Think I might eventually be interested in one.