AEBS + Western Digital

[Tial]

Hello Everyone,

I just bought Apple's Airport Extreme Base Station and it Rocks !! it was money well spent. But i do have a question regarding the setup with an external hard drive. I want to be able to hook up an external hard drive so my friends/guests can add and also copy files to and from the external hard drive. I want to purchase a western digital hard drive and copy some files from my windows computer and then connect that hard drive and use it for my AEBS is this possible? Because looking at the external hard drive it says it is compatible with MAC. Can someone please shed some light so i can go purchase it tonight.

Thank you,

Tial

 

[edmondo69]

Re: AEBS + Western Digital

Well, you can use any USB disk you like. I have 3 WD MyBook disks and all work fine. just make sure you format the disk as Journaled HFS+ with single partition.

 

[Tial]

Well, you can use any USB disk you like. I have 3 WD MyBook disks and all work fine. just make sure you format the disk as Journaled HFS+ with single partition.

How do i do that? I am new to Macs sorry. Also will i be able to do everything i mentioned on my first post?

 

[929406]

format via disk utility under applications - utilities. to share drive over the internet I believe you need a mobile me account but sharing over network should be as simple as mounting the drive via ftp

 

[Tial]

format via disk utility under applications - utilities. to share drive over the internet I believe you need a mobile me account but sharing over network should be as simple as mounting the drive via ftp

I just want to share the hard drive through my network not the internet network. So if I format the drive will I be able to transfer stuff from my window pc to the external hard drive and then network it using AEBS? Or once I format it only reads and writes Mac transferred files? I need both PC users and Mac users to be able to add and copy files from the network hard drive.

 

[flopticalcube]

I just want to share the hard drive through my network not the internet network. So if I format the drive will I be able to transfer stuff from my window pc to the external hard drive and then network it using AEBS? Or once I format it only reads and writes Mac transferred files? I need both PC users and Mac users to be able to add and copy files from the network hard drive.

You will have to format it FAT32 if you want to share it. There are 3rd party utilites that will let you read/write NTFS or HFS+ from either OS but the simplest method is FAT32.

 

[bohbot16]

If you format the drive to Journaled HFS+ and connect it to the AEBS then users on Windows, Mac, and Linux can read/write files. This is because the AEBS acts like a computer and shares the disk over both AFP and SMB/CIFS.

 

[flopticalcube]

If you format the drive to Journaled HFS+ and connect it to the AEBS then users on Windows, Mac, and Linux can read/write files. This is because the AEBS acts like a computer and shares the disk over both AFP and SMB/CIFS.

Yes but: "So if I format the drive will I be able to transfer stuff from my window pc to the external hard drive and then network it using AEBS?"

I thought the OP wants to transfer directly first and then hook it up to the AEBS.

 

[Tial]

If you format the drive to Journaled HFS+ and connect it to the AEBS then users on Windows, Mac, and Linux can read/write files. This is because the AEBS acts like a computer and shares the disk over both AFP and SMB/CIFS.

How do I format as a Journaled HFS+

 

[Tial]

Yes but: "So if I format the drive will I be able to transfer stuff from my window pc to the external hard drive and then network it using AEBS?"

I thought the OP wants to transfer directly first and then hook it up to the AEBS.

Yes, that is what I want to do but what 3rd party software are you referring to? Does everyone have to have it installed? Maybe another easier way is to just load my stuff from my PC and then unload on my iMAC, then reformat the External Hard Drive to the Jounraled HFS+, then reload all the stuff I dumped into the iMAC back to the external hard drive that is connected to the AEBS. How does that sounds?

 

[bohbot16]

How do I format as a Journaled HFS+

This is done using Disk Utility on your Mac

 

[bohbot16]

Yes, that is what I want to do but what 3rd party software are you referring to? Does everyone have to have it installed? Maybe another easier way is to just load my stuff from my PC and then unload on my iMAC, then reformat the External Hard Drive to the Jounraled HFS+, then reload all the stuff I dumped into the iMAC back to the external hard drive that is connected to the AEBS. How does that sounds?

I didn't refer to 3rd party software.
If you'll never use a file larger than 4GB on the drive, then you can leave it as FAT32 formatted and connect it to your Windows machine directly to do your initial transfer. The AEBS will want the drive to be formatted in either HFS+ or FAT32. If you want to use files larger than 4GB you should use the method you posted above so that the drive ends up as HFS+.

 

[Tial]

I didn't refer to 3rd party software.
If you'll never use a file larger than 4GB on the drive, then you can leave it as FAT32 formatted and connect it to your Windows machine directly to do your initial transfer. The AEBS will want the drive to be formatted in either HFS+ or FAT32. If you want to use files larger than 4GB you should use the method you posted above so that the drive ends up as HFS+.

Sounds good, thanks for all the help. you guys are awesome.

 

[Tial]

Okay thanks for everyones help. I got it to work with the external hard drive. One problem i have a photo folder that i wanted to share with my friends on my network hard drive. this folder is the biggest folder but how come sometimes i shows that i have 0 in the photo album and sometimes it shows the folders with the pictures? Has anyone ran into this problem? this Photo folder is about 25 gigs big. The external is formatted FAT32