Western Digital drive instead of TM

[suburbiton]

Hi all

I was looking to buy a Western Digital 1TB NAS drive to act as a time machine to back-up my files. But there's something I don't get.

At the moment I have my APE with the internet going into it via the ethernet. But to make the drive work, I'll need to unplug the net - so how can I have both?! Or do I need another APE (please say not - seems a little ridiculous). Can I daisy chain or split the ethernet cable so that both the internet and the drive can plug into my APE?

Thanks.

 

[suburbiton]

Any ideas anyone?

 

[suburbiton]

Great, thanks all.

 

[tefleming]

Dude.... chill. It's been less than an hour.

An Airport Extreme functions as a network hub.

Plug the internet into the WAN port and the computer and the NAS into the LAN ports.

If you need help figuring out which are which, check the manual:
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/AirPortExtremeBaseStationSetupGuide.pdf

//EDIT instead of additional post:

That only gets the NAS on the network. I'm not sure how you set it up as the TM drive. I think you have to tinker with it a bit.

 

[STXSTEVE]

Buddy at work tried this and said it worked great. Have not tried it so can not validate. http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080420211034137

hope this helps!

 

[skorpien]

Cripes, I wonder what you'd do if you had to wait a few days for a reply like on some other forums...

If by APE you mean AirPort Express, then you really can't have it act as a router AND connect a NAS drive at the same time (if the NAS is only capable of joining via ethernet cable). What I would suggest is to get a wired router (you can pick them up dirt cheap), connect your NAS to one port, and your AEX to the other. Then use AirPort Utility to set up your AEX in Bridge Mode (turn off DHCP, let it act as a wireless gateway instead), and you're set. As somebody else has mentioned, that will only share your NAS on the network. I think there's been a workaround for getting NAS drives to be used for TM somewhere on these forums. Do a search, and if you do start another thread, please have some patience. You may not get the help you seek if you act impatiently and/or sarcastically.