Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

FYI: New Airport Extreme DOES NOT work with multi-drive enclosures

MovieCutter

MovieCutter

macrumors 68040
Original poster
May 3, 2005
3,342
2
Washington, DC
Just an FYI for yall.

I plugged in two multi-drive RAID 0 enclosures. 1xLacie 500GB, and 1xcustom built 1.5TB drive. Neither worked with APX. The base station saw it, but wouldn't mount it. Spent some time with AppleCare, they determined that it was because they were RAID 0 multi-drive drives. I tried a single drive with a generic USB 2.0 port and it worked instantly.

AppleCare did say there may be a fix for this coming soon now that they know about it.
 
Oh that's sort of a bummer - so how do you like it. What kind of transfer rates are you getting between the USB hard drive and a computer connected over ethernet? Does it auto mount just like a normal harddrive? Possible to partition it easily just like drives normally in OS X? I'm going to get one pretty soon. I'd like to have a 500GB USB drive attached and have it in multiple partitions, so each mac on the network has their own partition for backups. Possible with this setup? Thanks!

-Kevin
 
Well apparently the enclosures you are using are not true hardware RAID enclosures. If they were, it wouldn't make any difference whatsoever what the contain within and how they pair the drives.
 
Bill Gates said:
Well apparently the enclosures you are using are not true hardware RAID enclosures. If they were, it wouldn't make any difference whatsoever what the contain within and how they pair the drives.
Click to expand...

Sorry there Bill Gates...I buy what 99% of the population buys. Sorry I am not as special as you are...:rolleyes: My not-so-special-as-you drives seem to work for all my professional HD video editing, maybe YOU can tell my why it won't work with a simple wireless base station....

Why don't you take one of your SUPER-SPECIAL hard drives and plug it into YOUR Airport Extreme N base station with your super-cool 15" C2D MBP and tell me if it works. Just want to make sure that I'm not super-cool.
 
BG's right; if it's true RAID then it'll appear to the host as a single drive. It doesn't surprise me that it's not working, as hardware RAID is considerably more expensive, but it does indeed explain why it's not working.
 
My not-so-special-as-you drives seem to work for all my professional HD video editing, maybe YOU can tell my why it won't work with a simple wireless base station
Click to expand...

Because an airport base station is NOT a computer that knows how to handle SOFTWARE raid systems. Either buy a hardware RAID unit, plug the device into your mac, or better yet: do what you want.
 
Nermal said:
BG's right; if it's true RAID then it'll appear to the host as a single drive. It doesn't surprise me that it's not working, as hardware RAID is considerably more expensive, but it does indeed explain why it's not working.
Click to expand...

Well then friggin A. What's the point. If I have spend 3-4x more on a hardware RAID just to store my DVD collection, then hell with it.
 
MovieCutter said:
Well then friggin A. What's the point. If I have spend 3-4x more on a hardware RAID just to store my DVD collection, then hell with it.
Click to expand...
You don't, but currently you'll have to connect it to a Mac and share it over the network until (if) Apple addresses this issue.

Edit: Thanks pengu. :)
 
spaceballl said:
What kind of transfer rates are you getting between the USB hard drive and a computer connected over ethernet? Does it auto mount just like a normal harddrive? Possible to partition it easily just like drives normally in OS X? I'm going to get one pretty soon. I'd like to have a 500GB USB drive attached and have it in multiple partitions, so each mac on the network has their own partition for backups. Possible with this setup?
Click to expand...
My MBP pushes files at around 3MB/s to a USB drive I have hooked up to my new Airport Extreme.

It pushes files at around 9MB/s to a Mac mini I have directly connected (CAT5) to the same Airport Extreme.

Both times the AirPort Utility showed my connection as 300 Mb. I get the same performance as wireless (3MB/s) when copying a file from the mini to the USB drive off of the Airport.

I have the USB drive hanging off the AE partitioned into 3 areas. When I use the AirPort Disk Utility to connect to the drive, all three partitions mount on my MBP each time. I can dismount the others, but I haven't found a way to just mount ONLY the one I want for this computer.
 
aristobrat said:
My MBP pushes files at around 3MB/s to a USB drive I have hooked up to my new Airport Extreme.

It pushes files at around 9MB/s to a Mac mini I have directly connected (CAT5) to the same Airport Extreme.

Both times the AirPort Utility showed my connection as 300 Mb.

I have the USB drive hanging off the AE partitioned into 3 areas. When I use the AirPort Disk Utility to connect to the drive, all three partitions mount on my MBP each time. I can dismount the others, but I haven't found a way to just mount ONLY the one I want for this computer.
Click to expand...
I don't know if this would be practical or not, but hiding the partitions you don't want mounted might do the trick.
 
I give Moviecutter credit for knowing the difference between a two drive case that uses Software RAID and a two drive case that uses hardware RAID built into its bridge chipset

For Example: LaCie BigDisk Extreme
"Easy-to-use: no software configuration, driver-free
• Built-in RAID 0 for Extreme FireWire 800 speed"

aristobrat said:
My MBP pushes files at around 3MB/s to a USB drive I have hooked up to my new Airport Extreme.

It pushes files at around 9MB/s to a Mac mini I have directly connected (CAT5) to the same Airport Extreme.

Both times the AirPort Utility showed my connection as 300 Mb. I get the same performance as wireless (3MB/s) when copying a file from the mini to the USB drive off of the Airport.
Click to expand...
Not entirely surprising, as USB is far slower than the IDE or SATA bus you have in the Mini. USB requres CPU management, I wouldn't be shocked if the processor in the router simply isn't powerful enough to keep the USB bus fed and watered. Would be interesting to compare the speed of that same USB drive attached to the Mini, to test that theory.
 
Is there a huge difference between Firewire 400 and USB? That mini has an external Firewire drive, and when I just copied the same file to it, it was about the same speed as the internal drive.
 
Wow...

MovieCutter said:
Sorry there Bill Gates...I buy what 99% of the population buys. Sorry I am not as special as you are...:rolleyes: My not-so-special-as-you drives seem to work for all my professional HD video editing, maybe YOU can tell my why it won't work with a simple wireless base station....

Why don't you take one of your SUPER-SPECIAL hard drives and plug it into YOUR Airport Extreme N base station with your super-cool 15" C2D MBP and tell me if it works. Just want to make sure that I'm not super-cool.
Click to expand...

He was right, you weren't wrong, just simply misinformed.

And yes, we get it that you think you're important because you edit in HD. Congratulations.
 
Maynerd said:
Will this router work with a USB hub and multiple External USB hard drives?
Click to expand...

From Apple's website :

Share your hard drive
Now you can share an external USB hard drive over your wireless and wired network by simply connecting it to the USB port on your AirPort Extreme Base Station. Called AirPort Disk, it's perfect for sharing files, making backups, and more. You can even connect multiple drives and printers using a USB hub (sold separately). (See system requirements.)
 
Peace said:
From Apple's website :

Share your hard drive
Now you can share an external USB hard drive over your wireless and wired network by simply connecting it to the USB port on your AirPort Extreme Base Station. Called AirPort Disk, it's perfect for sharing files, making backups, and more. You can even connect multiple drives and printers using a USB hub (sold separately). (See system requirements.)
Click to expand...

Good to know. Thanks!
 
aristobrat said:
I have the USB drive hanging off the AE partitioned into 3 areas. When I use the AirPort Disk Utility to connect to the drive, all three partitions mount on my MBP each time. I can dismount the others, but I haven't found a way to just mount ONLY the one I want for this computer.
Click to expand...



try this
i did it, and it worked perfectly on a firewire attached external. i would think it would also work with network attached drive
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back