Airport Extreme, HDD for time machine and printer

[147798]

I have a 1.5TB external HDD that I am using with my iMac. But I have just added a MBP, so now I have two computers that need backing up. I was thinking of time capsule, but someone suggested I just get an airport extreme and hang the 1.5TB drive off of that. Is that do-able?

But also the MBP only has 2 USB ports (my old Dell had 4). If I got the extreme, could I split the USB port and have both a HDD AND a printer off the extreme? Now that I say this out loud (or type outloud), this seems unlikely, but I thought I should check.

 

[bobdard]

I have a 1.5TB external HDD that I am using with my iMac. But I have just added a MBP, so now I have two computers that need backing up. I was thinking of time capsule, but someone suggested I just get an airport extreme and hang the 1.5TB drive off of that. Is that do-able?

But also the MBP only has 2 USB ports (my old Dell had 4). If I got the extreme, could I split the USB port and have both a HDD AND a printer off the extreme? Now that I say this out loud (or type outloud), this seems unlikely, but I thought I should check.

Yes you can connect both the HDD and the printer to the extreme through a HUB. As for backing up to the Extreme's HDD, it is possible, though IIRC Apple didn't officially support doing that. Maybe someone else can chime in on more up to date info about that.

 

[147798]

Yes you can connect both the HDD and the printer to the extreme through a HUB. As for backing up to the Extreme's HDD, it is possible, though IIRC Apple didn't officially support doing that. Maybe someone else can chime in on more up to date info about that.

Interesting. It was an Apple store employee who suggested I hang the 1.5 off the extreme.

 

[fehhkk]

Yup, I tried it last week with a USB hub, and the printer + airdisk works just fine...