aebs + hard drive benefits?

[troublesolstice]

what are some things you can do with this setup?
is it reliable enough for time machine?

 

[chuffman15]

yes it is. i have this setup using a 2tb external hdd i got on black friday. i will say that the usb connection does work good but not as good as a network drive that connects to the AEBS via an ethernet cable. ethernet is much faster than usb.

 

[colinwil]

yes it is. i have this setup using a 2tb external hdd i got on black friday. i will say that the usb connection does work good but not as good as a network drive that connects to the AEBS via an ethernet cable. ethernet is much faster than usb.

Gigabit Ethernet is more than twice as fast than USB 2.0 so you're correct. But many (most?) cheap network drives don't do gigabit Ethernet - only 100Mbps - which is four times slower than USB 2.0.

Also, I've found that trying to get network hard drives working properly with Lion can be a nightmare.

For that reason I prefer the USB route even if it's slightly slower

 

[b-rad g]

For the price of the AEBS + HD you could just get the Time Capsule. No??

 

[mfram]

I had the original Gen 1 Time Capsule with the well-known failing power supply problem. The problem with the TC setup compared to AEBS+Ext drive is that if the TC fails in any way (like the power supply), then you lose your data with it. Yes, Apple replaced my TC, but I lost the data that was on it.

With AEBS+Ext Drive, you lose your data if the drive dies. But not if the AEBS dies.

Now I keep backups on an external drive attached to the TC. I use the TC internal drive for temporary storage. Sure Apple probably dealt with the original design problem. But I don't trust my TC anymore.