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jonlb21

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 8, 2014
1
0
Hey Everyone,

I had a few questions regarding airport express that I hope you someone could help me with. I currently, have the older wall plug version of the airport express. I have comcast as my ISP and let me say the wireless it pretty shoty. It works sometime and other not at all. I know its not my current airport express that is the issue. So i was debating setting up an external hard drive over my wireless network. I put all my media (tv shows, movies) on my desktop on my 15" macbook pro and use Plex. The only problem with that is when the computer goes to sleep the Plex servers dont work so you have to constantly wake the computer up. So my thought was to take my currently external hard drive that I use for my time machine backups and set up a wireless connection directly into my older airport express.

My first questions is can I use my external hard drive I use for time machine ? or should I buy a new one strictly for media? My other question is I know the new aiport express looks like an apple tv and adds 5ghz support for newer devices. So my question do you think getting the new airport express would help my incinsistant wifi or speed it up in any way? Then I could use my current airport express as a wifi extender for a different part of the apartment. Or is this me just throwing money away for stuff I already have ?
 

wuush

macrumors member
May 4, 2014
76
9
My first questions is can I use my external hard drive I use for time machine ?

Yes, although i wouldn't recommend it, because i would rather have them seperate for safety (personal opinion), if i would have the money i would even buy a raid1 bay thingy for my backups, but thats just me.

And we don't know how large your HDD is so maybe you might run into problems, as your media library grows, like not so many recent Time Machine Backups (Monthly/Weekly/Daily). old backups will get deleted!

So my question do you think getting the new airport express would help my incinsistant wifi or speed it up in any way?

5Ghz definitely helps, because the 5Ghz Band has less interference (Bluetooth, DECT, Microwaves, Mobile Phones etc)

On the other hand i think the airport express will get a refresh soonish (ac-wlan etc.) so you might wanna hang on to your old device.

Then I could use my current airport express as a wifi extender for a different part of the apartment. Or is this me just throwing money away for stuff I already have ?

If you need wifi-range extension it is not wasted money. But i dont recommend using a repeater/extender with a wireless connection. Always try to connect the base station and the repeater with Lan/Dlan

P.S.: I dont own a Apple TV and an Airport Express, so i cant really comment on the ability of the Apple TV to read a HDD connected to an Airport Express via USB/Ethernet
 
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