Airport Extreme Base Station: how to plug a printer AND a hard drive simultaneously?

[kickFlip]

After doing a bit more research, I've found that the Airport Extreme Base Station will suit me better than the Express. I read on the description of the Extreme that it can not only share a printer, but also a USB hard drive.

How would one share both of these units at the same time? Would I need to plug a USB hub into the Extreme Base Station to allow for more than one device to be plugged in?

Thanks for any help.

 

[bozz2006]

Yes. That is how I do it; with a bus-powered hub.

 

[GoCubsGo]

Have you considered buying a network hard drive so it plugs into the ethernet port? This way you get your networked drive and networked printer.

 

[Chris Rogers]

You don't need to plug the printer in the AEBS(assuming you'r just looking for wireless printing). Our printer is plugged into my wife's iMac and I print from my MacBook all the time.

I forget how I did it, but it's just a setting that needs to be changed.

 

[snberk103]

Or buy a network printer, and use the ethernet plug for that. I love having my big photo printer across the room where it doesn't loom over me.

 

[bozz2006]

If you already have a USB printer and USB hard drive, just spend the $15 on a bus powered hub.

 

[kickFlip]

Cool, so a powered USB hub works.

A NAS would work, too. But for the hard drive, I'm just afraid that the throughput via ethernet will still not be as fast as on USB... but it's an option.

Thanks for the tips.

 

[snberk103]

Do a little more research, 'cause I guarantee this answer for sure... but...

AEBS has a Gigabyte ethernet. My MacPro, and my MacMini both have Gigabyte ethernet. At one point I had the two systems connected by ethernet via the AEBS and files just flew between them. So, consider connecting your system to the AEBS by wire, and find a Gigabyte NAS. Your files should transfer, I believe, faster than wirelessly to the AEBS and then USB to the NAS.

Transfer speed to a printer is doesn't usually matter since the limitation is the printing speed (unless you have printer that spools to internal RAM, and even then... unless you are a print shop you won't really see any difference I'm sure.) An ethernet connect printer can simply more convenient to physically locate since you can have a longer ethernet cable than you can USB cable to the printer.

Upate: I think that is the main point that most people forget about an ethernet printer... it's that you have tremendous flexibility in its location due to the length of cable that you can use to connect to it.