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Trouble connecting to NAS

Z

Zando

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 15, 2015
3
0
I'm new to all things Apple, and I did a search but did not find an answer that helped my situation. I bought an Airport Extreme base station with my new rMBP, then plugged in my USB 2TB WD external hard drive thinking I could get a decent NAS. After I set up the NAS, I was able to connect for a while. However, the next day when I tried to look or put something on the NAS, I could not see or access the drive. I get a message saying '"NAS" can't be opened because the original item can't be found'. When I physically look at the drive, it's still powered up.

The only place I can "see" the drive is going through Airport Utility, and it just shows that it is there. I have file sharing with a disk password enabled. The disk is formatted Mac OS Extended, by the way.

Any ideas for an OS X rookie?
 
You could try unplugging the drive and plugging it back in.

Otherwise restart the AEBS.

Is the drive self powered (has its own power brick)?

Some USB drive built in sleep modes are not compatible with the AEBS. The drive will go to sleep, but the AEBS can't wake it up.
 
I would not describe a USB drive plugged into a router as a NAS.

Your problem might be that the Router is not capable of providing enough power for the drive. Suggest you get one of those Y cables that often come with disc drives and plug the second port into a USB power source.
 
I have unplugged the drive and plugged it back in with no luck. It's a USB 2.0 drive and gets power through the AEBS, no additional plug is needed. I connected the drive to my rMBP and it works like it's supposed to.

I'll look into the sleep mode. Thanks!
 
Zando said:
I have unplugged the drive and plugged it back in with no luck. It's a USB 2.0 drive and gets power through the AEBS, no additional plug is needed. I connected the drive to my rMBP and it works like it's supposed to.

I'll look into the sleep mode. Thanks!
Click to expand...

The AEBS, especially older generations, is not all that robust when dealing with drives, and its not uncommon for a specific USB drive to work with a Computer and not reliably with the AEBS. Usually one drive works pretty good, however. I've had a 2TB WD Mac Book attached to my AEBS for a couple years now without issue.

Unplugging it and plugging back in should of kicked it out of that undefined sleep state.

Would it be easy to try a different USB cable? How about restarting the AEBS?

Its possible the drive is wanting too much power from the AEBS. If you have a powered hub handy perhaps try that. Or a AC-USB power brick and one of those Ycables that nebo suggested...

I would perhaps connect something else, like another USB drive or printer, and verify the AEBS USB port still works.
 
Last edited:
ColdCase said:
You would be wrong, perhaps one could argue performance, but its network attached storage.
Click to expand...

A NAS require an independent IP address an Ethernet connector and some basic operating system to qualify.

Below is a definition.

"A NAS unit is a computer connected to a network that provides only file-based data storage services to other devices on the network. Although it may technically be possible to run other software on a NAS unit, it is not designed to be a general purpose server. For example, NAS units usually do not have a keyboard or display, and are controlled and configured over the network, often using a browser.[4]

A full-featured operating system is not needed on a NAS device, so often a stripped-down operating system is used. For example, FreeNAS, an open source NAS solution designed for commodity PC hardware, is implemented as a stripped-down version of FreeBSD.

NAS systems contain one or more hard drives, often arranged into logical, redundant storage containers or RAID.

NAS uses file-based protocols such as NFS (popular on UNIX systems), SMB/CIFS (Server Message Block/Common Internet File System) (used with MS Windows systems), AFP (used with Apple Macintosh computers), or NCP (used with OES and Novell NetWare). NAS units rarely limit clients to a single protocol."
 
By this definition, the Airport Extreme qualifies as NAS when coupled with a USB drive.

This may be useful to the OP: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202807

As others have stated, one likely cause for his issue is insufficient power available from the AE. It meets USB 2.0 power specifications only. The Mac Pro exceeds these specs and that may be why the disk works OK on the Mac but not the AE.

More background info can be found here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPort_Extreme

The AE contains the NAS processor and supports AFP and SMB/CIFS network file protocols.
 
nebo1ss said:
I would not describe a USB drive plugged into a router as a NAS.
Click to expand...

nebo1ss said:
"A NAS unit is a computer connected to a network that provides only file-based data storage services to other devices on the network. Although it may technically be possible to run other software on a NAS unit, it is not designed to be a general purpose server. For example, NAS units usually do not have a keyboard or display, and are controlled and configured over the network, often using a browser.[4]

A full-featured operating system is not needed on a NAS device, so often a stripped-down operating system is used. For example, FreeNAS, an open source NAS solution designed for commodity PC hardware, is implemented as a stripped-down version of FreeBSD.

NAS systems contain one or more hard drives, often arranged into logical, redundant storage containers or RAID.

NAS uses file-based protocols such as NFS (popular on UNIX systems), SMB/CIFS (Server Message Block/Common Internet File System) (used with MS Windows systems), AFP (used with Apple Macintosh computers), or NCP (used with OES and Novell NetWare). NAS units rarely limit clients to a single protocol."
Click to expand...

You just did a pretty good job of contradicting yourself.
 
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