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Is Airport Extreme Base Station really that good?

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macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 1, 2007
351
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I always hear people say their router wireless drop, or internet connection stops so they need to reset the router..
I want to know do the AEBS has these issues too? Do you guys have to reset your router?? does it drop wireless connection??
It seems that I always hear about the good side about it.. but is there any down side on it??
Im planning to get one.. but since its quite expensive, I want to make sure everything before I buy it..
Thanks..
 
Airdisk together with XP/Vista is a No-No

Don't expect to be able to use the disk server together with Vista/XP/Linux. The AEBS freezes when you're writing to the disk

Reading is usually fine but not writing.

I'm really fed up with that!

--Jalle
 
The AEBSn has solved all my problems with dropped connections, AirTunes skipping, etc. Took a few updates to stabilise it, but it's great now.
 
My Airport Extreme (gigabit) is rock solid. Granted, I really don't use the disk server feature or the printer server, and I don't have any PCs connected to it.

I use it with a bunch of Airport Expresses (for AirTunes and connecting wired computers to the network), a Wii, and Macs connected by 11g, 11n or wire. So far so good.
 
BlackSmp said:
Don't expect to be able to use the disk server together with Vista/XP/Linux. The AEBS freezes when you're writing to the disk

Reading is usually fine but not writing.

I'm really fed up with that!

--Jalle
Click to expand...
That sucks.. What about reading or copying stuffs from the disk server? Will it hang too??
Thanks for your reply!
 
Reading is usally fine but I have one file that always freezes the Airport when I try to read that file.

Writing torrents to the disk will fail with 100% failure rate.

Writing single files might work, it depends. Larger files will fail but it might work upto 400 MB.

Streaming video to my Xbox MediaCenter works fine (connected with cable) and I am also able to read the file that freezes the Airport if I read it from XP/Vista. (I shall admit that the file seems to be corrupted, I can't read it even if I connected the disk directly to the laptop but at least the computer doesn't freeze)

I am waiting for a MacBookPro to arrive during the week and I am saving this corrupted file for testing:)

Printing works fine and the connection seems fine as long as I don't use the airdisk but the airdisk was one major reason behind my decision to go for the Airport, so...:mad:
 
BlackSmp said:
Reading is usally fine but I have one file that always freezes the Airport when I try to read that file.

Writing torrents to the disk will fail with 100% failure rate.

Writing single files might work, it depends. Larger files will fail but it might work upto 400 MB.

Streaming video to my Xbox MediaCenter works fine (connected with cable) and I am also able to read the file that freezes the Airport if I read it from XP/Vista. (I shall admit that the file seems to be corrupted, I can't read it even if I connected the disk directly to the laptop but at least the computer doesn't freeze)

I am waiting for a MacBookPro to arrive during the week and I am saving this corrupted file for testing:)

Printing works fine and the connection seems fine as long as I don't use the airdisk but the airdisk was one major reason behind my decision to go for the Airport, so...:mad:
Click to expand...
Um.. actually what is airdisk?? is it just connection of usb drive to the AEBS and use it as a disk server??
I also have one question.. to set up the printer server.. does the printer need to be mac os compatible?? since my printer only works on windows...
 
With Airdisk I meant the USB disk connected to the Airport, I think that it is called Airdisk but I might be mistaken.

You need the printerdrivers installed on the machine from which you're printing, so it doesn't need to be osxcompatible.

--Jalle
 
Works for me

I have the gigabit AEBS, and it works like a charm for me. I purhcased it to upgrade to 802.11n from a D-Link DGL-4300 G router. No dropped connections, no crashes, airdisk works as advertised. I've copied roughly 40GB over wifi to the airdisk with no issues.

Now for the negatives....

- the AEBS does not have a statefull packet inspection firewall.
- Logging on the AEBS is pathetic
- It does not support dynamic DNS
- it reboots every time you change the config

I ended up running a dual band setup to get the best of both worlds. My D-Link connects to the internet, does dynamic DNS, has an SPI firewall and good logging. It handes the G clients and acts as DHCP server. My AEBS is in bridge mode and handles 802.11N only clients and serves up airdisk.
 
It will be that good when Apple updates its firmware to something other than 7.2.1. Downgrading to 7.2 fixed most of my problems, so now I *only* have to reset it every 1.5 days. 7.2.1 caused resets up to 10 times a day.

Have a look in the AEBS section of discussions.apple.com. Lots of people having firmware problems.

Having said that, it is a nice piece of hardware. When it works, it works well.

So buy it, but do so with your eyes open.

my .02
 
BlackSmp said:
Reading is usally fine but I have one file that always freezes the Airport when I try to read that file.

Writing torrents to the disk will fail with 100% failure rate.

Writing single files might work, it depends. Larger files will fail but it might work upto 400 MB.

Printing works fine and the connection seems fine as long as I don't use the airdisk but the airdisk was one major reason behind my decision to go for the Airport, so...:mad:
Click to expand...

Wow, that sounds horrible, I'm considering buying one, purely to have a wireless disk, to use as a backup drive for time machine when lopard comes out. If it's that bad at writing over the network that makes it a non starter for me!
 
katorga said:
I have the gigabit AEBS, and it works like a charm for me. I purhcased it to upgrade to 802.11n from a D-Link DGL-4300 G router. No dropped connections, no crashes, airdisk works as advertised. I've copied roughly 40GB over wifi to the airdisk with no issues.

Now for the negatives....

- the AEBS does not have a statefull packet inspection firewall.
- Logging on the AEBS is pathetic
- It does not support dynamic DNS
- it reboots every time you change the config

I ended up running a dual band setup to get the best of both worlds. My D-Link connects to the internet, does dynamic DNS, has an SPI firewall and good logging. It handes the G clients and acts as DHCP server. My AEBS is in bridge mode and handles 802.11N only clients and serves up airdisk.
Click to expand...
Wow.. sorry for my limited knowledge..
Is SPI firewall really that useful?
And what is dynamic DNS?? I think DNS = for example, changing www.nba.com into the ip??
And how bad is logging on the AEBS?? I really want a reliable login page, because its where I go everytime where problem occurs...

And I read the AEBS has problem when using bittorrent like Azeurus!?!?
 
katorga said:
....I ended up running a dual band setup to get the best of both worlds. My D-Link connects to the internet, does dynamic DNS, has an SPI firewall and good logging. It handes the G clients and acts as DHCP server. My AEBS is in bridge mode and handles 802.11N only clients and serves up airdisk.
Click to expand...

I have this exact same setup. It works great with my XP boxes. Only problem is that the NAS and USB shared drives get unmounted regularly, requiring a remount which sometimes does ot work, requiring a restart or the AEBS. I download torrents and write them to the NAS with no problem. In terms of reliability, the NAS and USb drives stay mounted in XP all the time without a glitch. Wish this would get figured out by apple.

--------
2.4 Ghz 17" MacBook Pro running Parallels
Dell 4550 2.4Ghz Box XP Pro
 
SPI is really only necessary if you have traffic initiated from outside, i.e. you have ports open and are allowing services in. Having said that, its not really a dealbreaker for a home router as packet filtering in itself does a reasonable job.

Logging on the Airport Extreme is handled through SNMP traps and I have found that much better than log files *ugh*

Dynamic DNS is a service (usually free) that allows you have a domain name that will cater for your ever changing IP address. Nearly all Netgear routers support this whereby they handle the logging on and updating of the IP address when it changes with the dynamic dns host provider. e.g. dyndns.org
Again, whether a regular home user needs this is debatable. (no, I dont wish to debate it) I personally have used it in the past, but dont as I have external hosting.

I will agree that the reboot on most (not all) configuration changes is a tad annoying, but once setup, there really shouldnt be a need to fiddle with the config all that often. Pretend you're a corporate where to implement any change requires a 4 week turnaround with 3 levels of sign off. Betcha dont really need to make that change now, do ya! :p
Think about what needs to be configured, do it once, then leave it.

The one thing I can fault with the Airport Extreme is the lack of total stealth. The best you can achieve is showing 1 port as blocked.
 
i have the new extreme base station and im having pretty good results. it covers the whole house i live at, with great speeds in even the farthest room. however, the farthest room in the house gets about a quarter of the dl speed i get having the router in my room but on average that person in the far room still gets dl speeds around 300-400kps while mine will steer closer to the 700s-900s. all in all, pretty good
 
It's good...what I like best is how easy it is to setup a wireless printer...literally just plug and play.
 
Mine has been running flawlessly 24/7 except for a couple of times a few weeks ago, when the airdisk did not find the external HD. We have very thick cement walls and both laptops get at least 3 bars through 4 walls. I have all the latest updates, and never have to reboot. I have two USB hubs connected to it as well. Printer has not arrived yet.
 
I've heard some hubbub about how the AEBS doesn't work with Halo 3 because of the NAT settings. I don't know if this is true or not, but it would definetly be a deciding factor in me purchasing one for my upcomming new MacBook order.
Can anyone either confirm or deny this? Thanks :)
 
JSpence said:
I've heard some hubbub about how the AEBS doesn't work with Halo 3 because of the NAT settings. I don't know if this is true or not, but it would definetly be a deciding factor in me purchasing one for my upcomming new MacBook order.
Can anyone either confirm or deny this? Thanks :)
Click to expand...

I have had no issues at all. I use it in conjunction with the following items. A PB G4, MBP, Xbox360, Wii, PS3, Apple TV, and iPhone....I have had 0 issues.
 
AEBS (pre gigabit) with HP Photosmart and Seagate FreeAgent Pro 320GB connected to it through a 4 Port USB Hub.

1 MacBook running 10.4.10 that has BootCamp running XP SP2

1 Windows XP MCE

Both connect with no issues to the AirDisk, no freezes at all with all 3 OS'es. Backed up over 10GB's from the Windows XP MCE to the AirDisk wirelessly with no issues.

Backed up about 5GB's of data from the MacBook to the AirDisk wirelessly with no issues.

No issues reading from the AirDisk either on all systems.

AEBS is running the most recent firmware 7.2.1, and the most recent software update.

Hope that helps.
 
JSpence said:
I've heard some hubbub about how the AEBS doesn't work with Halo 3 because of the NAT settings. I don't know if this is true or not, but it would definetly be a deciding factor in me purchasing one for my upcomming new MacBook order.
Can anyone either confirm or deny this? Thanks :)
Click to expand...

It doesn't support UPnP for auto-opening ports, it supports NAT-PMP instead (an open standard, in contrast to UPnP which is neither open nor standardized). As UPnP is a Microsoft thing, I assume that's probably the Halo issue. You can still manually open ports if you're savvy.
 
Just to reiterate I use my APBS with out any tinkering just some WPA.....i play halo 3 all the time....never an issue.
 
I'm returning mine tomorrow. I've only got PC's currently, but the one wireless pc (802.11g card) drops randomly. Full signal strength too.

Also, the Air Disk worked for the wireless PC (when it was connected), but for the wired PC on the gigabit lan side, even though the Air Disk software would say there's a drive hooked up I could never attach to it. I'd get an error that the username/password was wrong even though I just had disk password set.

Very saddening to hear, as I've got a 24" iMac en route.
 
I find the AirDisk function completely worthless due to very poor performance and lockups. Printing is OK, but stalls frequently and doesn't queue print jobs.

At the end of the day, it's a very nice WiFi router. but don't count on the AirDisk or Printer sharing.

BTW - Is there anyway to make a device show up like an AirDisk, but not hosted from the AEBS? I'm currently hosting shares from a windows machine, but mappings don't persist through sleep cycles. I real like the AirDisk interface and auto reconnection from my laptops.
 
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