Airport Extreme Base Station once-and-for-all please

[fitlies]

So i just bought my AEBS and have been reading this forum regarding the problems that may arise and how it can be solved. But being me, I just have to try it myself before experiencing what other AEBS users have gone through - inability to use hard disks plugged into the AEBS and being able ti read and write into it from both PC and Macs.

I wanna ask is this a possible solution to all these problems:

Use a USB hub and plug in both an NTFS-formatted ext hard disk and a Mac OS Extended (Journaled)-formatted one into the AEBS.

Install Macdrive in the PC so that it can access the Mac OS Extended (Journaled)-formatted hard disk, and the NTFS one as well.

Install NTFS 3G in Mac so that it can access the NTFS-formatted hard disk, and the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) too.

This is what I thought of theoratically, i wanna know if anyone has tried this method. if everything else fails, i'm gonna sell my AEBS away. 'cause I wanna use the AEBS like cloud computing or a wireless dropbox for my home.

Thanks for the read guys

 

[waw74]

the drive format only matters on the device the drive is plugged into, that device then translates it to a network file sharing protocol that your computer understands.

quotes from apple support article

Note: ExFAT and NTFS formats aren't supported.

The AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule allow for sharing storage devices based on the format used to initialize the storage device. For example, if HFS-plus formatting was used, AFP and SMB/CIFS protocols are used to share the device on the network. If a FAT format was used, only SMB/CIFS protocols are used.

AFP is apple's filesharing method (supported natively only on macs)
SMB/CIFS is windows filesharing method (supported natively on macs and windows)

depending on how it's shared is how it will show up in finder, unless you get into the technical details, all that will really change on the mac is the little picture beside the drive, and on windows, nothing will change.


the only downside on using hfs is that if the time capsule dies, or you decide to plug in the drive locally for other reasons, it's not readable on windows without extra software, but you can plug it into the mac and read it.

 

[fitlies]

okay, i get the gist of it but i couldn't really follow as i'm not really well versed in this area.

but bottomline is... do you happen to know what is the one single format that i can use on a single ext hard disk that will be detected by both my PC and Mac so that i can do file sharing and back ups over my network?

or is there not one?

 

[waw74]

Drive formats
HFS, FAT, NTFS, and others

are not the same as

network file sharing protocols
SMB/CIFS (windows, also supported by mac), AFP(apple only)

-----------------------------------

your computer doesn't have to "detect what format" the drive is.

your computer, no matter what os it's running, never sees what format a network drive is.
Only the device (the extreme) the drive is directly plugged into does. Your computer only sees the network protocol the device speaks

the extreme acts as a "translator" from drive formats to network protocols, since drive formats are not transferable over the network.

If, and only if, you decide to unplug the drive from the extreme, and plug it directly into a USB port on your computer, then your computer will care what format it is.

------------------
so if you have a ...

NTFS drive plugged into an extreme
-won't work since NTFS is not supported
-can be read and written to by windows if plugged directly into a USB port on the computer.
-can be read by mac if plugged directly into a USB port on the computer. (can only be written to if you install software)

FAT32 drive plugged into an extreme
-will show up in windows and mac as if a windows machine is sharing it. (you can read and write)
-will be limited to individual file sizes under 4GB.
-can be read and written to by both a windows and mac if plugged directly into a USB port on the computer.

HFS drive plugged into an extreme
-will show up in windows as if a windows machine is sharing it. (you can read and write)
-will show up in mac as if a mac is sharing it. (you can read and write)
-can be read and written to by a mac if plugged into a USB port on the computer.
-can only be read and written to on a PC if plugged into a USB port on the computer if you install software.
-------------------------

 

[fitlies]

thanks waw74 for the really deep insight on this matter. i was really at lost to all the question marks that are circling in my head. i'm gonna try to format my drive to hfs and see if this file-sharing -over-my network thing works.

i really appreciate all the inputs here, thanks again waw74