Aiport Exteme (USB Drive)

[NukeIT]

Just food for thought and YMMV

I had issues using a USB hub and the AirPort Extreme. It would work for a few days and then poof one day a drive would be missing. Would have to reset everything and then the drive would show up again. And it wasn't always the same drive dropping.

 

[ColdCase]

I believe the new AE has corrected this issue, I had the same issue with previous gen AEs (but not timecapsules).

If you go cheap, multiple drives off a USB hub can be kludgy in any situation, but even more so with the AE . But if you have no other choice, you can often make it work well. You need to be selective about devices, however. Use products suggested earlier in this thread.

 

[L T]

An Airport Extreme will work fine with multiple partitions. It sounds like your disk is corrupted. I would attach it to your Mac and use Disk Utility to repair the disk and see what that does.

You can format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then you can partition it however you want. Mac OS Extended supports large drives like that, and when attached to the Extreme, Windows PCs can see and edit the files too despite being in a Mac format!

Guys I'm back to square one! My dad unplugged the drive to lend to a friend, not realising the friend wouldn't be able to access it on his windows drive.

We got it back and I plugged it it, it didn't work. Showed up as "disk needs repair" in disk utility.

I did that, no difference, I even reformatted it again and put the films back on. Still nothing!

Any ideas guys?

 

[Altemose]

Guys I'm back to square one! My dad unplugged the drive to lend to a friend, not realising the friend wouldn't be able to access it on his windows drive.

We got it back and I plugged it it, it didn't work. Showed up as "disk needs repair" in disk utility.

I did that, no difference, I even reformatted it again and put the films back on. Still nothing!

Any ideas guys?

Go get a new drive from the friend . Also stop loaning out hard drives. Sounds like some head damage to me causing the Format to still fail.

 

[ZeRoLiMiT]

i would format on windows see if it shows up on windows. Then try again on mac and see if it works. or plugin the computer

 

[POTMONSTER]

Hi guys again,

Been looking for something to house all my WD 2TB units i now have spare since changing over to Mac...
Anyway i know very little in the way NAS ... all i want is something i can bang four drives in... back up my mac and get hold of my files anywhere in the world.. also my children like there movies which are all stored on drives too..

Now i don't know if i buying over the top here but this looks to fit all my needs....http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

so am i looking in the right direction with the above

 

[ColdCase]

Hi guys again,

Been looking for something to house all my WD 2TB units i now have spare since changing over to Mac...
Anyway i know very little in the way NAS ... all i want is something i can bang four drives in... back up my mac and get hold of my files anywhere in the world.. also my children like there movies which are all stored on drives too..

Now i don't know if i buying over the top here but this looks to fit all my needs....http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

so am i looking in the right direction with the above

If you are starting from scratch, only Apple devices (Time Capsule, OSX server, APEx) are approved for time machine backups. Many third party NASs claim to support TimeMachine, some do some don't. If you are going to use a NAS for backup, use something like CCC instead.

In the long run, investing now in a refurbbed Mac Mini and hanging DAS drives off of it will be much more satisfying. Using the mini as a media and file server may be a few more $$$, but it is well worth it. If I had it to do over again, thats the way I'd go.

If you are adamant about NAS, look at Synology products. A DS412+ is a nice 4bay unit that supports video server well enough, but thats $600. A brand new mini is $700 (Apple refurb sometimes as low as $550). Very nice USB enclosures for your drives are $15 each. NAS = $600, brand new mini = $760 .

 

[Altemose]

If you are starting from scratch, only Apple devices (Time Capsule, OSX server, APEx) are approved for time machine backups. Many third party NASs claim to support TimeMachine, some do some don't. Use something like CCC instead.

In the long run, investing now in a refurbbed Mac Mini and hanging DAS drives off of it will be much more satisfying. Using the mini as a media and file server may be a few more $$$, but it is well worth it. If I had it to do over again, thats the way I'd go.

If you are adamant about NAS, look at Synology products.

Can't agree more with this statement. If Apple changes anything, then NAS owners may be out of luck. They aren't going to do that with a Mini of their AirPort products though.