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Z8beema

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 18, 2013
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hi,
Can you attach an external hard drive to an airport extreme and use it as a time capsule? I have a Mac mini, a WD 500 GB hard drive and a 4th generation airport extreme. Possible?
 
If you mean for Time Machine backups, then no. At least not officially.
The only Extreme that is supported for it is the 6th generation 802.11ac.
 
Yes, plug in the drive, go into TM preferences, click on select drive and navigate to your volume. It's really very simple. Had mine set up that way for maybe 10 years. Make sure your NAS has been formatted correctly (I think it's MAC OS Extended (Journaled))

In reference to the above post by JTToft, I have never relied on TM as my only backup, and I don't recommend you do either. I also make backup images of my drives monthly. However, I have never had a problem accessing my unofficially supported backup. I use TM mostly as a document recovery system or need to go back to a somewhat earlier configuration for my Mac. I there were a serious issue (and thank God this has not yet happened), I would use the disk images to re-create my Mac system. It is faster and easier to do it that way.
 
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Yes, plug in the drive, go into TM preferences, click on select drive and navigate to your volume. It's really very simple. Had mine set up that way for maybe 10 years. Make sure your NAS has been formatted correctly (I think it's MAC OS Extended (Journaled))
- I believe he's talking about a USB hard drive plugged into the USB port of the AirPort Extreme, not a separate NAS.
 
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- I belive he's talking about a USB hard drive plugged into the USB port of the AirPort Extreme, not a separate NAS.
NAS=networked attached storage. A HDD plugged in to an AEBS qualifies as an NAS. A simple one, but still an NAS. At least that is my understanding.
 
- I believe he's talking about a USB hard drive plugged into the USB port of the AirPort Extreme, not a separate NAS.
Correct
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Yes, plug in the drive, go into TM preferences, click on select drive and navigate to your volume. It's really very simple. Had mine set up that way for maybe 10 years. Make sure your NAS has been formatted correctly (I think it's MAC OS Extended (Journaled))

In reference to the above post by JTToft, I have never relied on TM as my only backup, and I don't recommend you do either. I also make backup images of my drives monthly. However, I have never had a problem accessing my unofficially supported backup. I use TM mostly as a document recovery system or need to go back to a somewhat earlier configuration for my Mac. I there were a serious issue (and thank God this has not yet happened), I would use the disk images to re-create my Mac system. It is faster and easier to do it that way.
so i plugged it in...went into time machine and the drive did not show up
 
Correct
[doublepost=1471725018][/doublepost]
so i plugged it in...went into time machine and the drive did not show up
I think this should help: http://www.macworld.com/article/1132613/airporttime.html

Basically have to reformat the drive using Disk Utility while attached to Mac. Then plug into AEBS. Map to drive using Finder and finally choose in TM. Sorry, as I said, I did this years ago and had forgotten the sequence I used.
 
What's rothe format of the drive? The last time I looked it should be HFS+ format connected to the AirPort Extreme to see it!
It is HFS+ (Which is the Mac OS Extended, Journaled I mentioned above). Make sure your format HFS+ is journaled. If your formatting was ok, did you go to Finder and mount the drive?

Edit: I found this video which is very thorough in how to set up a USB-AEBS connect HDD as a Time Capsule. Keep in mind that the video is a couple years old and therefore may not match up exactly to your current OS X version, but it should be very close. Had to go to old source as newer ones all assume you have the "ac" version of the AEBS and that one is much easier to setup as a TC.

 
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