Recommended ext hard drive for Airport Extreme

ttate01 said:

Hi all,

New to the forum.

I just picked up an Airport Extreme Base Station to pair with my Verizon Fios Actiontec modem/router in bridge mode.

I'm very much interested in hooking up an external hard drive and enabling the network disk for our mac products in the house. I will ONLY be hooking up one hard drive - no printers, no multiple drives, etc.

If I'm only looking to power one thing - what's the pros and cons of powered vs. non-powered? I'd like to get something I can plug in and leave plugged in, preferably a reliable drive that will go to sleep when not in use...any suggestions, mac-friendly brands, potential issues to be aware of, etc.?

Thanks!!

Tom

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I'm a big fan of western digital. Not one of the hard drives of theirs has failed on me. And the externals that I am using now are all older than 3 years. SO I would recommend the WD MyBook Live. Ethernet connectivity and at $199.99 for the 3TB version at Best Buy.

And the main pro of having a powered external is the fact that you can get higher capacity drives than the ones powered through usb. And since you want this to be a media hub thing for all your mac products, then you'll want a lot of storage. I am currently using my 1TB WD external with A/C power to store my iTunes library and have about 300 movies on there. I even accidentally dropped it when I was rearranging my room and it kept working just fine.

ttate01 said:

Does anyone know if the My Book 1, or 2 TB for Mac drives play well with the AEBS?

Any major horror stories?

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I use them with my airport extreme, but I had issues with the "crapware" that makes a virtual CD that you can't unmount. After I used there smartware software to shut it down, and then removed all the traces it left in my system files (changed my USB icons) it was finally a useable drive, and works good.

That being said, it was a major pain.

I would recommend powered as well, both for size/cost, and reliability.

Also, for reasons I don't really understand, my AEBS will not recognize even individual powered drives (WD or my own HD put in a rosewill enclosure) if they're not hooked up via a USB hub. It makes no sense to me, but is consistent across every drive I've tried with it. Just a heads up in case you run into that problem.

pna said:

I would recommend powered as well, both for size/cost, and reliability.

Also, for reasons I don't really understand, my AEBS will not recognize even individual powered drives (WD or my own HD put in a rosewill enclosure) if they're not hooked up via a USB hub. It makes no sense to me, but is consistent across every drive I've tried with it. Just a heads up in case you run into that problem.

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Many laptop hard drives (if you aren't careful) actually require more power than USB is spec'd for. My guess is that is the case you are running into. The external USB Hub is most likely powered and allows for a higher current draw than standard USB 2.0 specs. I have hooked about 4 portable external drives to my Airport Extremes with no issue.

Edit: With that said, I recommend Powered preferrably with either a metal case or an active fan for drive longevity. Many cheap plastic cases cause hard drives to overheat killing the drive just after the warranty is up (in my experience).

paulrbeers said:

Many laptop hard drives (if you aren't careful) actually require more power than USB is spec'd for. My guess is that is the case you are running into. The external USB Hub is most likely powered and allows for a higher current draw than standard USB 2.0 specs. I have hooked about 4 portable external drives to my Airport Extremes with no issue.

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All of the drives I've plugged into the AEBS have had their own power supply (and were plugged in). That's why it's so confusing to me...

I have three 2TB drives attached to my Airport Extreme, via a USB hub.
One Hitachi USB2 2TB
One Western Digital MyBook USB2 2TB
One Western Digital Essentials USB2 2TB

These drives did NOT work with the Airport Extreme, with or without the hub:
One IOMega eGo 1TB USB2
One Western Digital Green 1TB drive in cheap-ass USB3 case

pna said:

All of the drives I've plugged into the AEBS have had their own power supply (and were plugged in). That's why it's so confusing to me...

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That is very strange then!

aarond12 said:

I have three 2TB drives attached to my Airport Extreme, via a USB hub.
One Hitachi USB2 2TB
One Western Digital MyBook USB2 2TB
One Western Digital Essentials USB2 2TB

These drives did NOT work with the Airport Extreme, with or without the hub:
One IOMega eGo 1TB USB2
One Western Digital Green 1TB drive in cheap-ass USB3 case

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Did the other two not work because they're designed to be ultra energy efficient?

how do I install the Western Digital MyBook Live 3TB on my macbook pro, since I dont have a cd drive on it?