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Airport Extreme Dropping External Drive

C

christurbo

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 20, 2009
177
0
Staffordshire, UK
I bought a new 5th gen AEBS and installed it yesterday updating the firmware to latest version and enabling the 300mbps 5GHz access point.

I formatted a 2.5" USB hard drive to Mac OS Journaled and connected it via USB.

Last night I transferred GBs of data with no problems. However I copied my iTunes media over night, and this morning it stated that it lost connection to the drive.

I since cannot connect to the drive again without disconnecting the USB drive and reconnecting it.

This seems to be a common problem with no evident fixes. Has anyone got a reliable connection out of this device?

I was using a MacBook Pro 2010 on SL.

If not then I suppose I might send this back and get a dedicated NAS.
 
I think the problem is that the drive is going to sleep but AEBS cannot wake it up? I have read this happens for all makes of drives.

Any fixes?
 
I've had my AEBS+USB drive for about four months now with no problems.
 
christurbo said:
Have you set any energy saving mode options up?:-

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3616812

Also what devices are you using? What hard drive? 2.5" USB powered? What firmware?

Many thanks
Click to expand...

It's a Freecom 2,5" USB powered hard drive (but I guess the USB powered ones all work exactly the same way), firmware is currently 7.6 but has been on the two earlier as well with no problems. Other than that all settings (except for passwords and other things that need to be personalized) are default both in AirPort Utility and the computer. No changes made to energy saving settings or anything.
 
Solved

OK - I managed to fix this. The problem was that when I was putting my MBA to sleep by closing the lid the External HD connected to AEBS did not know this so would not go to sleep too.

If left for a while in this state [overnight or many hours] when I opening my MBA it would not renegotiate the drive.

I therefore open finder before putting my MBA to sleep and select the 'Eject' icon next to my NAS. This then notifies the AEBS which puts the drive to sleep. As soon as I open the MBA the drive renegotiates with no problems.

I have also increased the 5GHZ AEBS range within my home. I was getting 16mpbs upstairs or at the other end of the house. However when I simply flipped the AEBS on its side [so that the green light was at the bottom], I am getting at least 160mbps!!!
 
christurbo said:
I bought a new 5th gen AEBS and installed it yesterday updating the firmware to latest version and enabling the 300mbps 5GHz access point.

I formatted a 2.5" USB hard drive to Mac OS Journaled and connected it via USB.

Last night I transferred GBs of data with no problems. However I copied my iTunes media over night, and this morning it stated that it lost connection to the drive.

I since cannot connect to the drive again without disconnecting the USB drive and reconnecting it.

This seems to be a common problem with no evident fixes. Has anyone got a reliable connection out of this device?

I was using a MacBook Pro 2010 on SL.

If not then I suppose I might send this back and get a dedicated NAS.
Click to expand...

I was using an old time capsule as a network hard drive, connected to a Norton Core router, and it kept disappearing or refusing to connect. I was using it for backups, and found nothing had backed up for 8 days. I checked INFO and found it was being identified as a PC! I was getting "this server type cannot be used for this purpose" messages. I shut off the desktop, disconnected power from the Time Capsule, reconnected power, rebooted the desktop Mac, and found the Time Capsule now properly identified.
 
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