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Airport Extreme Base Station Q's

E

ejewels52

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 3, 2006
77
0
Hello, I'm thinking of purchasing an Airport Extreme Base Station to replace my linksys 54GT, but have a few questions that hopefully can be answered!

1) Is it smart to buy one now, i.e. will a new model come out soon?
2) My plan is to buy a USB hub and I want to have 2 hard drives attached and a printer. I want one of the hard drives to be for time machine, and the other to be for sharing. Is this possible?

3) Any alternatives that will let me do the same stuff???

Thats it! any help greatly appreciated!
 
ejewels52 said:
Hello, I'm thinking of purchasing an Airport Extreme Base Station to replace my linksys 54GT, but have a few questions that hopefully can be answered!

1) Is it smart to buy one now, i.e. will a new model come out soon?
2) My plan is to buy a USB hub and I want to have 2 hard drives attached and a printer. I want one of the hard drives to be for time machine, and the other to be for sharing. Is this possible?

3) Any alternatives that will let me do the same stuff???

Thats it! any help greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...

I don't forsee a new version coming out soon.

I personally have a usb hub with 3 printers and 3 external usb hard drives connected to mine. works a charm for time machine, as a remote location for media, and general network based storage, as well as wireless printing etc.
 
thanks for the response. Any particular USB hub needed, or just anyone? Are there any other alternatives to laying down 180 bucks for a new router? maybe something to add on to my linksys router? Or a cheaper Airport Extreme base station "rip-off"?
 
ejewels52 said:
thanks for the response. Any particular USB hub needed, or just anyone? Are there any other alternatives to laying down 180 bucks for a new router? maybe something to add on to my linksys router? Or a cheaper Airport Extreme base station "rip-off"?
Click to expand...

If you just want an 802.11n router with a USB port and a few ethernet ports then yes, there are multiple units that do the same thing and are cheaper. The main advantages of the AEBS are ease of setup and the ability to run n-speeds simultaneously with b/g (if you have an older machine or an iPod touch, for example). If you don't care about either of those, the AEBS isn't the most economic way to do things.
 
i looked around, but couldn't find any with usb ports that would let me share hard drives and the like...
 
You could always by a NAS or a small server system instead of plugging in a disk drive. Lots of printers these days can be networked directly. No need for an AEBS for those uses. That said I've got an AEBS which solved all sorts of connection problems I was having with the Actiontec unit supplied with Verizon FiOS.
 
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I love my airport extreme base station.

Before it I had a netgear wireless router that required near constant attention.

After getting the airport extreme (and yes it was twice the price of other units), It has been running (connected to a ADSL router) for over two years without a single problem...I have literally just left it on 24/7 for all this time without ever having to do ANY maintenance.

For that simplicity, and the saving of my time, I would have paid twice what I did.
 
I'm considering the AEBS along with my first lap top/MBP. The wifi will be my first time with it at home as well. DO you think the AEBS will broadcast the signal about 30 yards, or so across the street to my shop space ? Wondering if I could use that home wifi signal to stream music in my shop across the street. The AEBS will have a clear shot to my front door with the shop in view from that same door.
 
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