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Converting My Hot Swap External to 802.11n "Time Capsule"?

M

macbedhead

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 28, 2010
49
1
Is there any way to convert My Hot Swap External to 802.11n "Time Capsule" ?

It has 2 USB ports on the front (photo enclosed) .


Can I just buy some WIFI dongle and sync with Air so I don't need to eject my partitions (and lose access) when I want to use my Air around the house ?
 

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You can't just buy some WiFi dongle and expect it to work. You will need some sort of USB device server, whether standalone or built into a router. Also, getting Time Machine to work is a bit more complicated.

If you have an AirPort Extreme or Time Capsule, it includes a USB port in the back that will allow you to share USB drives. The Express will not however, as the USB port it has is only for printer sharing. Other routers may have USB device servers that will allow you to share the USB drive, but be sure to get one that is compatible with Macs.

You can also purchase standalone wired or WiFi USB device servers. This offering by Edimax has Mac support, but may require a Windows PC (or Windows on your Mac) for initial setup if my experience with their products is any indication. After setup however, you will be able to access it via your Air. That said, it will require you to reformat your HDD as FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, EXT2, or EXT3 (no support for HFS+) and it seems only capable of FTP or SMB (AFP is required to use Time Machine without a hack). A Google or MRoogle search may bring up other products that will work, but from the preliminary searches I've done it seems Mac support is sorely lacking.

If none of those solutions are acceptable, and if you have another Mac, you can connect the USB HDD to that and share it on your network. So long as that Mac remains on and on your network, you will be able to access that drive via your Air and even use it for TM I believe.
 
Thanks for the very detailed and tech savvy response !


No I won't need it as a time machine external.I just use CCC.

Then if I went for the edimax NS-1500n would I need to buy Tuxera's software to read AND write same speed as Joliet to the external or is there a free solution for read/write patching ?

Also ,I seem to remember there was software that can change Joliet to NTFS without having to remove and restore the data on the disc .Do you know that software suite ?
 
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Unfortunately I don't know that software, sorry. I do have a few questions though, and I apologize if they're a bit... well... stupid...

What OS are you using on your current machine? Also, what format is the external currently? And why do you need to convert Joliet to NTFS? I'm not familiar with the Joliet other than with burning discs and images.

If you're concerned with being able to read and write to the drive using your Mac, the Edimax uses SMB to allow both Windows and Macs to access the attached drive regardless of its format.
 
I'm reasonably tech savvy but I was just unsure about this area and it seemed like it might have been possible to get it rolling for a low outlay of time a effort.
I won't be doing it as it is too much hassle with the Windows set-up .I was hoping it was a plug in and detect upgrade but it is not. I just have the standard Mac OS X format ...my mistake.

Thanks for you obvious skill and feedback Skorpien.
Maybe someone else can take these bits of info and set up their own wireless external .
 
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Anytime. I'm happy to offer any help I can.

I can completely understand your decision. Been there, done that, learned the hard way. And honestly if it's ease of setup, you're probably better off with a NAS. They're designed to do exactly what you are wanting. That's actually what I ended up doing.
 
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