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Airport Extreeme + USB drive = NAS?

Mr.Bullitt

Mr.Bullitt

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 15, 2009
173
2
Hi guys!

I was wondering, if I connect an USB harddrive to my APE, - will this then work as a NAS? e.g. the file system is vFAT/exFAT in order to be compatible with both Windows 7 and Mac OS X.

My PS3 is connected to same wifi and a future media streamer - will they be able to access the drive ?
 
Yes, it work. but I stop doing that long time ago after a harddisk failed and all my data gone. It is very hard to back up the data in such a setup.

Now, I just use a small pc with Ubunto as a server and with all drive mirrored. I also copy all data to an external hard drive every once in a while. Hopefully that would minimized the chance of data lost.
 
Newtoy said:
Yes, it work. but I stop doing that long time ago after a harddisk failed and all my data gone. It is very hard to back up the data in such a setup.

Now, I just use a small pc with Ubunto as a server and with all drive mirrored. I also copy all data to an external hard drive every once in a while. Hopefully that would minimized the chance of data lost.
Click to expand...

Is it possible to get it to support this DNLA or is it not necessary with PS3?


Are you implying that the setup made your harddisk fail????
 
Mr.Bullitt said:
Is it possible to get it to support this DNLA or is it not necessary with PS3?


Are you implying that the setup made your harddisk fail????
Click to expand...

This setup will not serve DLNA to your PS3. You will still need a computer in this setup running a DLNA server of some sort.
 
Weaselboy said:
This setup will not serve DLNA to your PS3. You will still need a computer in this setup running a DLNA server of some sort.
Click to expand...

Hmm.. is DLNA required in order to play files on the NAS on the PS3 (or other streaming player)??
 
Mr.Bullitt said:
Hmm.. is DLNA required in order to play files on the NAS on the PS3 (or other streaming player)??
Click to expand...

Yes... with the setup you described. There are some more full featured NAS devices that do include DLNA servers, but the Airport with a USB drive is just going to give you network access to data on the drive and nothing else.
 
Weaselboy said:
There are some more full featured NAS devices that do include DLNA servers
Click to expand...

Just to note that they need not be expensive to be more full featured.

I have a 2 TB WD My Book Live that I just saw at Costco for US$130. Not much of a premium off of a 2 TB external drive. Connect that by Ethernet to your APE and away you go.

B
 
balamw said:
Just to note that they need not be expensive to be more full featured.

I have a 2 TB WD My Book Live that I just saw at Costco for US$130. Not much of a premium off of a 2 TB external drive. Connect that by Ethernet to your APE and away you go.

B
Click to expand...

That is a good deal. Does the DLNA work well?
 
Weaselboy said:
That is a good deal. Does the DLNA work well?
Click to expand...

I use mine (bought at $160) mainly for Time Machine (Time Capsule replacement), haven't really used the DLNA features much since all my media is served via iTunes/iCloud.

I was considering adding another one as a simpler, more iOS compatible way of sharing my photos library.

B
 
is there any free DNLA software for mac OS X that works properly???
 
Mr.Bullitt said:
is there any free DNLA software for mac OS X that works properly???
Click to expand...

For serving to the ps3? Check out playstation media server. Or plex media server. Both run in OS X and are free.

I had issues with playstation media server. I've only used the dlna portion of plex a few times but it worked well.
 
It's not free, but cheap: PlayBack by Yazsoft.

Works flawlessly with my PS3. You can serve up videos, audio, photos, whatever. And it works with a drive attached to my AEBS (but obviously you need to have the Mac with the server running...).
 
hmm.. the PS3 Media Server works fine.

Now I am wondering, if PSM also support streaming to Apple TV ???
 
So with the ps3 media server

I can have an external drive connected to the airport extreme & be able to play movies on the ps3 with the pc off?
 
Mr.Bullitt said:
... the file system is vFAT/exFAT in order to be compatible with both Windows 7 and Mac OS X
Click to expand...

Just a note, if it's connected to the AirPort Extreme Base Station, the file system only has to be one that the AEBS supports (HFS+ or FAT16/32), not necessarily one that the client computers support. They're just talking to the file server on the AEBS, not the file system itself. So, for example, you could use HFS+ on the disk and still mount it in Windows.

Not that it matters much, but just thought I'd point it out in case you have preferences. However, don't think the AEBS is compatbile with exFAT yet (although that could have changed recently; I know my older one is not), so if you want FAT you should probably stick with FAT32. And of course if you ever plan on removing the drive from the AEBS and connecting it locally to a machine (via USB or whatever), then I suppose you'll also care about the file system.
 
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