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Time Machine Now Works with Airport Extreme USB Drives

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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After the release of today's Time Machine and Airport update, several readers report that Time Machine now supports backups to USB drives connected to your Airport Extreme basestation. This configuration essentially reproduces the functionality of Apple's Time Capsule product.

Apple had originally advertised these "AirPort Disk" wireless backups as a feature for Leopard, but this feature was removed prior to its launch. Speculation had suggested that it may have been due to some unresolved security issues, but Apple has made no official statements. While there had been workarounds published, today's update appears to officially restore this feature.


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Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2008/03/19/time-machine-now-works-with-airport-extreme-usb-drives/
NICE! I think this is going to make a lot of people very happy :D Now I need to figure out all that importing DVDs and the Apple TV thing :)
 
Yes. Finally! This is great news!! Tried this before and all i got was good old kernal panic.
 
Ok

Heres an idea, why don't you make everything into one freaking machine, stop doing all these dumb add ons Apple. Oh yeah we can use a HD now BFD!:mad:
 
Great news for people who bought the AE for this very reason

I'm wondering the performance difference between the Extreme and Capsule ( over a wireless network ), since USB for Extreme is fast enough to keep up with an 'N' network.
 
damn it! Now I don't know if I should buy an AEBS and just attach an existing HD or go all out and get a TC!
 
If I am reformatting my external HD, what format should I make the partitions?

I tried Mac OS Extended (Journaled), but could not get either partition to appear in Time Machine.
 
Perfect! The Time Capsule is just too expensive, but Airport is much cheaper. Then, I can find a 500 gb or so on sale, and get an inexpensive back up solution.

I also find it so interesting that Apple pretty much never mentioned taking it out, or putting it back in. Almost like their iPod touch calendar event "bug fix".
 
Stella said:
Great news for people who bought the AE for this very reason

I'm wondering the performance difference between the Extreme and Capsule ( over a wireless network ), since USB for Extreme is fast enough to keep up with an 'N' network.
Click to expand...
USB is fast enough, unfortunately the CPU inside the AEBS isn't. Disk transfers from an attached USB are very slow.

conebbs said:
Now will people stop bitching now?
Click to expand...
Not unles the reliability of Airdisks improves with this update as well.
 
I honestly didn't think they would do this. I have a tiny bit more faith now.
 
Wait, will this work if the EHD is connected to the main mac, and is seen as a shared device between computers? Even if its not connected to the router?
 
mpcoady said:
If I am reformatting my external HD, what format should I make the partitions?

I tried Mac OS Extended (Journaled), but could not get either partition to appear in Time Machine.
Click to expand...

I am not doing partitions, but just used Mac OS extended and it worked. I was just getting ready to research the difference between journaled, etc.
 
Telp said:
Wait, will this work if the EHD is connected to the main mac, and is seen as a shared device between computers? Even if its not connected to the router?
Click to expand...

no. you could use the old hack with that though, but it has data-loss problems.
 
not me

I don't want to burst anybody's bubbles, but I haven't experienced any success with this. It's no different for me from before the software/firmware update. My USB drive does not show up in Time Machine until after I manually mount it in Finder. Of course, the drive has an existing Time Machine backup on it already, so maybe I need to reformat the drive before this actually works as people are saying it does. So far, no go here.
 
****, this just makes me even more pissed off that my external Hard Drive is dead... and my friend voided the warranty... :(:(
 
How Ironic!

Read this on the earlier forum post, tried it with my Airport Extreme and it worked! This is the reason I bought the Airport Extreme. I am stoked it works.

The ironic part of this story is I just received my 1T TC this morning! I contemplated not opening it when I got airdisk working, but couldn't resist.

I am now setting up my AE to extend my network off the 1T TC.


FUNNY THOUGH, had this fix come out 2 weeks ago I would have splurged and just purchased a 2T external drive for the AE.

Either way, Nice job :apple:

B&T:cool:
 
Hold The Phone!

The updates certainly don't work for everyone, and in particular they haven't helped me in any way.

I have the same old total nonfunctionality of my external drive plugged into my Airport Extreme now that I had before the upgrade. Exactly the same configuration worked perfectly under Tiger, but ever since upgrading to Leopard the air disk functionality has been gone. The updates have made NO difference for me in trying to get it back.

Yes, I have both the firmware update and the airport utility update installed and...nada. ABsolutely the same problem I have always had with Leopard.

When I check the Disk tab of the airport utility the external disk is clearly shown as connected and functioning, however my external drive does not appear on my desktop and it isn't seen by Time Machine. Still, it does appears in the finder and the finder says it is connected. When I click on the disk in the finder in order to access its contents,I hear it spin up, there is a slight pause, then I get the same old error message every time: "The operation cannot be completed because the original item for [name of disk] cannot be found."

No one has ever been able to tell me what that means, but I'm getting used to it regardless.

Hope your luck is better. But, hey, since when did getting Mac software to work reliably become a matter of luck?
 
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