For background, I have an iBook G4 running 10.4.11, and a MacBook running 10.6.xx, and a midgrade PC laptop that's my wife's, running Windows XP.
I've been fooling around with a new Belkin router ("N600 play") which I might return, basically I bought it in order to put my two external drives (a LaCie and a Seagate, both USB2.0) on the network. So far I get screamingly slow transfer rates (less than 2mb / second, if that) which I understand is actually not abnormal. Also seems a bit of a waste since I can't make full use of the Wireless-N (given my iPod Touch and two of our laptops are G-only).
What I was thinking is instead taking my old iBook G4 and attaching it to my old router (I have an old linksys g-router) via ethernet and then activating network sharing and use the SMB protocol to allow our lone PC laptop in the house to access it. My questions are, if I successfully did this:
1) would I be able to use Time Machine to do backups over the shared drive?
2) would AppleTV be able to access media shared on the drive? I've got music and videos I'd like to have access to wirelessly.
3) would the above solution allow me to access the external drives along with the iBook's drive (I assume it would)
Or should I spring for a new Airport Extreme so I could use the Airport Disk mode, would that just be easier on me? I understand with Airport Extreme I might be able to squeeze out higher transfer rates, like, maybe 6mb/second. Are there other advantages of using Airport Extreme (e.g., if I want to use AppleTV and Time Machine?)
Any advice or thoughts appreciated.
I've been fooling around with a new Belkin router ("N600 play") which I might return, basically I bought it in order to put my two external drives (a LaCie and a Seagate, both USB2.0) on the network. So far I get screamingly slow transfer rates (less than 2mb / second, if that) which I understand is actually not abnormal. Also seems a bit of a waste since I can't make full use of the Wireless-N (given my iPod Touch and two of our laptops are G-only).
What I was thinking is instead taking my old iBook G4 and attaching it to my old router (I have an old linksys g-router) via ethernet and then activating network sharing and use the SMB protocol to allow our lone PC laptop in the house to access it. My questions are, if I successfully did this:
1) would I be able to use Time Machine to do backups over the shared drive?
2) would AppleTV be able to access media shared on the drive? I've got music and videos I'd like to have access to wirelessly.
3) would the above solution allow me to access the external drives along with the iBook's drive (I assume it would)
Or should I spring for a new Airport Extreme so I could use the Airport Disk mode, would that just be easier on me? I understand with Airport Extreme I might be able to squeeze out higher transfer rates, like, maybe 6mb/second. Are there other advantages of using Airport Extreme (e.g., if I want to use AppleTV and Time Machine?)
Any advice or thoughts appreciated.