Optimal network solution - advice!

[sergiobaschi]

I need to rearrange my network setup. Today I have a dlink645 router, which is pretty lousy. Moving from the kitchen, where the router is, to the bedroom (4 meters away) makes the wifi speed drop from 35/15 to 2/1 MB/s on my iphone.

Except for what's listed in my signature, we have three more iPhones (one 4, two 4S), three PCs with n-wifi and a very scarcely used 2008 MB connected to the Wifi. (Pretty much for two persons )

To fix the issue with weak wifi signal, I'm thinking of getting an Airport Extreme. To that, I would like to connect my external drive that now is connected to my Win 7 htpc. The drive is 4 TB, of which 2.2 TB are used. Tha main purpose is to be able to access movies from the drive both in the livingroom htpc as in the bedroom situated iMac.

The current filesystem on the external drive is NFTS, which I understand isn't even readable on the Airport Extreme.

So. How would you solve this? I'm not ready to throw away the htpc and replace it with a ATV or Mac Mini, due to less functionality / cost. Other than that, please, what would you do?

 

[bmcgrath]

Firstly, the Airport Extreme is a very solid router. Signal is good and I rarely get a drop out.

As for your drive, you will need either FAT32 or HFS+.

 

[sergiobaschi]

Firstly, the Airport Extreme is a very solid router. Signal is good and I rarely get a drop out.

As for your drive, you will need either FAT32 or HFS+.

Thank you. I bought a refurbished AE today. Got it for 1150 SEK, instead of 1600 (roughly $175 instead of $250).

Right now I'm backing up all the data on my 4 TB drive. Then, I'll format it to HFS+, and put all the data back. And then I'll connect to it using Samba on the Win 7 htpc, and using AFP on the Macs.

Doing some copying now, so it will take some time before I can connect it.

 

[mmomega]

I need to rearrange my network setup. Today I have a dlink645 router, which is pretty lousy. Moving from the kitchen, where the router is, to the bedroom (4 meters away) makes the wifi speed drop from 35/15 to 2/1 MB/s on my iphone.

Except for what's listed in my signature, we have three more iPhones (one 4, two 4S), three PCs with n-wifi and a very scarcely used 2008 MB connected to the Wifi. (Pretty much for two persons )

To fix the issue with weak wifi signal, I'm thinking of getting an Airport Extreme. To that, I would like to connect my external drive that now is connected to my Win 7 htpc. The drive is 4 TB, of which 2.2 TB are used. Tha main purpose is to be able to access movies from the drive both in the livingroom htpc as in the bedroom situated iMac.

The current filesystem on the external drive is NFTS, which I understand isn't even readable on the Airport Extreme.

So. How would you solve this? I'm not ready to throw away the htpc and replace it with a ATV or Mac Mini, due to less functionality / cost. Other than that, please, what would you do?

I would personally suggest the Airport Extreme, or any newer dual band router.

Next, NTFS is readable in OS X but you can not write to it, you can get a 3rd party plug-in like Tuxera NTFS to allow NTFS reading/writing and the ability to format NTFS drives through disk utility.

 

[sergiobaschi]

I would personally suggest the Airport Extreme, or any newer dual band router.

Next, NTFS is readable in OS X but you can not write to it, you can get a 3rd party plug-in like Tuxera NTFS to allow NTFS reading/writing and the ability to format NTFS drives through disk utility.

The Airport Extreme can't read NTFS. That's why I'm formatting the drive in this very moment. As you can see in my last post in this thread, I've already gotten an Airport Extreme.

 

[mmomega]

The Airport Extreme can't read NTFS. That's why I'm formatting the drive in this very moment. As you can see in my last post in this thread, I've already gotten an Airport Extreme.

Gotcha, I completely missed your last post beforeI made mine.