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Moving my Time Machine and Video streaming hard drives to Airport Extreme?

alexjholland

alexjholland

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 3, 2011
854
862
Bali, Cambridge, Sydney.. anywhere.
Hi, I currently have a stock Sky fibre router in my apartment.

This is connected via homeplugs to my iMac, Macbook, Apple TV, Sky Box and games consoles; with wireless offered for my iOS devices and guests.

The master socket is my hallway airing cupboard, so it's currently sitting on the hallway floor with the cables running out.

I'm planning to get an Airport Extreme and have a cubby-hole fitted for it in the wall, with the power + ethernet cables going through a small hole in the wall to the Sky Router, which will be sitting on a shelf inside my airing cupboard, with all wireless functionality disabled (acting purely as a modem).

I currently have two hard drives fitted to my iMac, which I'd be keen to relocate to the hidden shelf also, connected via a powered USB hub to my Airport Express.

1) Hitachi Touro 2GB, acting as Time Machine backup
2) Hitachi Touro 4GB, acting as Video drive, shared via Yazsoft's 'Playback'

Can both these drives carry out these roles whilst connected to an Airport Extreme, via USB hub?

Any other thoughts?

Thanks
 
Yes. That will work. Something to note is that only the "tower" style Extreme supports Time Machine. The speeds will be lower with the hard drives behind the Extreme and not directly connected to the iMac.
 
The latest model? That's the one I'd be going for!

Speed surely won't matter with Time Machine.. Will it be fast enough for streaming HD/5.1 video?

Currently, both hard drives disconnect themselves from my Mac every day or so, which is annoying.. I wonder if it would still happen here?
 
alexjholland said:
The latest model? That's the one I'd be going for!

Speed surely won't matter with Time Machine.. Will it be fast enough for streaming HD/5.1 video?

Currently, both hard drives disconnect themselves from my Mac every day or so, which is annoying.. I wonder if it would still happen here?
Click to expand...

That depends on the issue that is occurring. How are the drives hooked up currently? Is there a hub in the mix?
 
My two hard drives are ungrateful, for having each been given a dedicated USB slot, rather than a hub!

I am going to trying the app Keep Drive Spinning tonight, to see if that helps. I hope it doesn't keep them making noise though?

I wonder if it's anything to do with the fact that I formatted both drives to HFS+, thusly wiping out the Hitachi firmware. Their website suggests I have to contact technical support to get this - could it help?

Thanks
 
alexjholland said:
1) Hitachi Touro 2GB, acting as Time Machine backup
Click to expand...

Time Machine backups to a networked drive are stored inside a sparse bundle image and are not interchangeable with a directly attached TM backup like you have been using. So what you want to do will work, but you will need to erase the drive and start a new TM backup to the networked disk so it is in the proper format.

There is a workaround for this, but it is a hassle. Easier just to start over.
 
I am sure that you are aware that just turing off/disabling WIFI is not the same as putting the Sky router in Bridge mode.
 
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