Wireless USB Hubs

[madeofstone]

Recently purchased a macbook and I like it a lot but I have a lot of USB devices that I'd like to continue to use but don't want the macbook to be tethered to them.

Is there any hub that I can purchase that I could attach my external hard drive and printer to?

I've searched and most of the ones I've found have really bad reviews or are not mac compatible.

Also I've searched threads on here and most of them didn't seem that helpful with what I'm looking to do.


Thank you

 

[GimmeSlack12]

You could get an Airport Express, it's wireless and has a USB port on it. Not sure if you can add a hub to that one port to expand it though. I've used an AE to hook up a printer, was a cinch.

 

[madeofstone]

OK, I think Airport Extreme can do this, thing I'm worried about is that I don't want to share my external hard drive with my roommates, is there a way to make the airport work only with my mac? Password protect it or something?

 

[WPB2]

OK, I think Airport Extreme can do this, thing I'm worried about is that I don't want to share my external hard drive with my roommates, is there a way to make the airport work only with my mac? Password protect it or something?

Yes you can password protect the AEBS, and password protect just the HD hooked to it.

You can only hook hard drives, and printers to the AEBS. I have hooked flash drives to it as well.

 

[Tom Foolery]

you can also enter you MAC address into the airport express and only allow your computer to access it so even if your roommates got the passwords they wouldn't be able to access the drive

 

[skorpien]

Just to clarify, those that are saying "Express" in your posts, this won't work on an Express. Only on an Extreme or Time Capsule.

You can password protect the actual hard drive connected to the AEBS/TC so that any computers connecting to the drive need the password to access it. You do not need to use MAC address filtering, and your roommates can still access the network if you choose to allow it, but they won't be able to access the hard drive and its contents without the password. It's all set up in AirPort Utility under the Disks tab.

 

[psingh01]

of course there is nothing stopping your roommates form plugging your external drive to their computers when you're not around. the password protection only works to prevent them from mounting it over the wireless network