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Airport Extreme - is it just a Router ?

S

Sounds Good

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 8, 2007
1,692
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Is the Airport Extreme just a router, or is there more to it than that?

If it is just a Router, how does it compare to other N-Routers out there?
 
It is just a router, but it offers a lot more functionality than most routers.

You can connect an external hard drive up to the router and share it wirelessly across the network, or you can even share it globally so anyone in any part of the world can access it.

It is the most simple, easiest to use and user friendly router I have ever experienced. I love it.

And I have had no problems at all with it.
 
Sounds Good said:
Is the Airport Extreme just a router, or is there more to it than that?

If it is just a Router, how does it compare to other N-Routers out there?
Click to expand...

Yes, it is just a router. But is has a USB port that allows network printers and HDs.

As for comparison, I can't help you there.
 
Kilamite said:
You can connect an external hard drive up to the router and share it wirelessly across the network...
Click to expand...
Hmmm... I see there's only one USB port. Could you use a USB hub to hook up and share, say, an external hard drive AND a printer?
 
Sounds Good said:
Hmmm... I see there's only one USB port. Could you use a USB hub to hook up and share, say, an external hard drive AND a printer?
Click to expand...

Yup - that works fine also.

Transfer rates from the hard drive aren't anything to get excited about - although it isn't that much slower than connecting by USB to your laptop.

Printer sharing is unbelievably easy to do. Bonjour is such good software.
 
Kilamite said:
Printer sharing is unbelievably easy to do. Bonjour is such good software.
Click to expand...

Unless you have an HP Printer. :(

Most of their drivers don't support Bonjour and only allow simple text printing. So if you are looking to hook up a HP All-In-One, I wish you luck in getting anything but the printer working.
 
creator2456 said:
Unless you have an HP Printer. :(

Most of their drivers don't support Bonjour and only allow simple text printing. So if you are looking to hook up a HP All-In-One, I wish you luck in getting anything but the printer working.
Click to expand...

I have an HP 2575 All-In-One and it works a treat.

Bonjour saw it, OSX had the drivers and not had a single problem, PC or Mac.
 
janey said:
Hardly. zeroconf is a bunch of standards (and not standards) by all sorts of people, including from apple and microsoft.

bonjour is only one implementation.
Click to expand...

So I'd be wrong in saying that Firefox is an offical piece of software by Mozilla because it implements features and standards that all web browsers must have - so Firefox is only an implementation?
 
Kilamite said:
I have an HP 2575 All-In-One and it works a treat.

Bonjour saw it, OSX had the drivers and not had a single problem, PC or Mac.
Click to expand...

I have a HP PSC 1350 All-In-One and OS X saw it but did not work for anything but printing. I know I have the right drivers cause it works directly connected to my MBP. I guess some more fiddling is in store. :)
 
Kilamite said:
So I'd be wrong in saying that Firefox is an offical piece of software by Mozilla because it implements features and standards that all web browsers must have - so Firefox is only an implementation?
Click to expand...
Depends on how you meant your statement.

By mine, your statement would be mostly true. Gecko, not Firefox, would be only an implementation of a layout engine that supports a group of related standards (html, css, javascript etc.), and Gecko development and what have you would be run by Mozilla. Mozilla foundation/corporation employees and volunteer devs have certainly played a part in shaping some of those standards, but Mozilla themselves didn't do the whole thing.

I was under the impression you meant Bonjour as being an Apple thing through and through, which it isn't, even if one particular Apple engineer played a significant part. It is merely an Apple implementation of zeroconf, just like Avahi is another one.
 
creator2456 said:
I have a HP PSC 1350 All-In-One and OS X saw it but did not work for anything but printing. I know I have the right drivers cause it works directly connected to my MBP. I guess some more fiddling is in store. :)
Click to expand...

The one 'all in one' I tried had the same problem. My feeling with this is that it might be like the WinModem versus hardware modem thing. For cheaper models a lot of the functionality probably resides in the software (hence the giant drivers), which can't be reproduced over the network. More expensive models will have the features fully implemented in hardware, and so can be used over the network.

That's just my gut feeling, though.
 
macleod199 said:
The one 'all in one' I tried had the same problem. My feeling with this is that it might be like the WinModem versus hardware modem thing. For cheaper models a lot of the functionality probably resides in the software (hence the giant drivers), which can't be reproduced over the network. More expensive models will have the features fully implemented in hardware, and so can be used over the network.

That's just my gut feeling, though.
Click to expand...

That sounds pretty plausible. I couldn't get anything more than printing out of my HP from my MBP or the two windows pcs on my network. Oh well. Guess I just hook it back up directly to my MBP.
 
janey said:
I was under the impression you meant Bonjour as being an Apple thing through and through, which it isn't, even if one particular Apple engineer played a significant part. It is merely an Apple implementation of zeroconf, just like Avahi is another one.
Click to expand...

Bonjour, is by Apple. Regardless of what standards and other bits and bobs they include in it, the over all, finished product is by Apple. It isn't 3rd party software by another company.

Doesn't matter what standards they include etc, the fact is that it was Apple who took them all and produced Bonjour, so I am correct in saying it is software by Apple. You confused the situation by making it appear that Apple didn't make Bonjour and that it was infact by a group of companies. That isn't true, Apple used other implementations but the overall product as a whole was by Apple.

That was my point.
 
Kilamite said:
It is just a router, but it offers a lot more functionality than most routers.

You can connect an external hard drive up to the router and share it wirelessly across the network, or you can even share it globally so anyone in any part of the world can access it.

It is the most simple, easiest to use and user friendly router I have ever experienced. I love it.

And I have had no problems at all with it.
Click to expand...

How do you share it outside the network on the net. I can't find any docs or how tos on accessing my HD when I'm on the road. Works fine on the home network but no dice otherwise. On top of that, I go through a linksys router so I can have dyndns update for me with out a computer online all the time.

Any help is greatly appreciated
 
UrsaMajor said:
How do you share it outside the network on the net. I can't find any docs or how tos on accessing my HD when I'm on the road. Works fine on the home network but no dice otherwise. On top of that, I go through a linksys router so I can have dyndns update for me with out a computer online all the time.
Click to expand...

Well, I have never tried to share it outside the network, but I believe you tick the boxes like in the following picture:

airport_share.png


Share disks over Ethernet WAN port. I'm not sure on the exact procedure to connect to the disk - but I'd assume you'd go to "Connect to server" in OSX and type in the IP address.

Would be good if someone could clarify that - I'm basing that on assumption rather than actual experience; but it seems logical that that would be the case.
 
I'm also interested in using an external HDD via the USB port, especially considering a network with both PCs and Macs.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
 
Sounds Good said:
Is the Airport Extreme just a router, or is there more to it than that?

If it is just a Router, how does it compare to other N-Routers out there?
Click to expand...

I think it's a pretty respectable. Range is not the greatest out there, throughput is not the greatest out there but it works pretty well.

It's worth bearing in mind that the Airport Extreme's HDD throughput is pretty dire, and add this to wireless networking and you can't exactly expect huge wodges of data to be zipping around your home.

It's big plus point is that it is an absolute doddle to set up for networking and print sharing / disk sharing. Just like anything else Apple, even if you don't know what you're doing it's not really an issue.
 
Sesshi said:
It's worth bearing in mind that the Airport Extreme's HDD throughput is pretty dire, and add this to wireless networking and you can't exactly expect huge wodges of data to be zipping around your home.
Click to expand...


Really? I stream videos on a regular basis and I can't think of what other "wodges" of data I would want to zip around. I keep my video library on my network HDD, and access it over wifi from 75+ feet away without a hiccup.

I used to have a D-Link router and would gladly pay for the extra to get this....it simply rocks!
 
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