Airport Extreme and External Hard Drive

skierskier
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Hi



I have an airport extreme base station connected to me router which serves 2 Macs. My mac mini is hard wired from the back of the airport by Cat 6 and my MBP is connected by 802.11n.



I am looking to add an external hard drive to plug into the USB on the back of the Airport so that I can access this from both Macs but before I do I wondered if by adding this my wireless will slow to g speed? I am aware that if I connected the mini via the wireless card this would be the case, hence the reason why I have left it hard wired.



Could anyone help please.



Thanks



Skier

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Your AirportExtreme connected to USB hard disk would mean a USB2.0-type connection. Therefore from AirportExtreme 802.11n mode to your laptop 802.11n means that essentially you should be able to access the USB hard disk via wireless at 802.11n speeds (generally 50mbit/sec in/out typical) [remember that 54mbit/s is 802.11g "maximum theoretical speeds", 802.11n achieves 50mbit/s in average daily use, maybe higher if your whole wireless is running pure 802.11n not 802.11n/g or 802.11n/g/b].



    Please do report your experiences back in this forum sometime.
  • Reply 2 of 10
    skierskier Posts: 16member
    Many thanks for your response.



    The problem is I really have no opportunity to try before I buy.



    Having thought further I would be grateful if you could answer me another question. Say I connected to the extreme wirelessly from both my mini and mbp. The mini would be via g and the mbp n, is the drop to g level only applicable when I am drawing information from the router or does the network permanently run at g as my mini is connected. For example, say the mini was in sleep but connected to extreme and I was working solely on the mbp



    I hope that makes sense if you want me to try and explain more please let me know.
  • Reply 3 of 10
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    I think your current setup is good. Keep the MacMini to the Airport Extreme via your Cat6 gigabit cable. Then you can run the Airport Extreme in "pure N" mode to ensure maximum speed and performance between your MBP and the Airport and Mac Mini. You can attach the external hard disk to the Airport Extreme or to the MacMini and see how the performance is.
  • Reply 4 of 10
    skierskier Posts: 16member
    Thanks for your help. to finish off.....



    So, correct me of I am wrong but if I plug an external hard drive into the USB connection on the back of my extreme then the mini will access this via the hard wired connection and not via wireless. Therefore I can continue to run pure n to my MBP which will access the drive via wireless?
  • Reply 5 of 10
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Skier View Post


    Thanks for your help. to finish off.....



    So, correct me of I am wrong but if I plug an external hard drive into the USB connection on the back of my extreme then the mini will access this via the hard wired connection and not via wireless. Therefore I can continue to run pure n to my MBP which will access the drive via wireless?



    Now this part I cannot verify 100%. I can only research this for you in one or two days time, I think. I want to give you a definite answer.
  • Reply 6 of 10
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Skier View Post


    Thanks for your help. to finish off.....



    So, correct me of I am wrong but if I plug an external hard drive into the USB connection on the back of my extreme then the mini will access this via the hard wired connection and not via wireless. Therefore I can continue to run pure n to my MBP which will access the drive via wireless?



    Yes. Okay I checked. What you should do is connect the hard drive to the USB connection of the Airport Extreme. Then hard wire the Mini to the Airport Extreme. Make sure you turn off the wireless on the Mac Mini. Now run Airport Extreme in pure-N mode.



    Your Mac Mini will access the hard disk as fast as the USB2.0 connection, and the router processing, can handle. I am getting 45mbit/sec receiving data from the hard disk. Maybe a bit low, but remember the Airport Extreme is serving about almost 10 other computers wirelessly. Additionally, there is other network traffic flying around since the Airport Extreme is running bridged mode off a wired network served all by a Linksys Router.



    The above config I recommended, I think you will get a nice external / Airport Extreme experience.



    I am using Lacie Porsche 250gb USB2.0 with AC adaptor 7200rpm external drive.
  • Reply 7 of 10
    skierskier Posts: 16member
    Thank you very much for all your help, I can purchase a drive today without fear this will mess my wireless up.
  • Reply 8 of 10
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Well, nothing is 100% guaranteed, but you have some good possibilities there for success. Let us know how it goes.
  • Reply 9 of 10
    skierskier Posts: 16member
    I have now tried to wire the ext drive through my airport which works and I can see it from both Macs, but the disk keeps spinning permanently.



    I have thought of another alternative which I would appreciate some views on, given my set up listed above how do I connect the 2 macs directly? At the moment I have a MBP running wireless through extreme on 802.11n. My mini is using the extreme as a bypass and is connected by ethernet.



    Is there any way to connect from my MBP to my mini without using wireless which will slow my whole system down?



    In simple terms I will send a request from MBP to extreme requesting access to mini, the question is how do I set this up?



    Thanks



    Richard
  • Reply 10 of 10
    donebyleedonebylee Posts: 521member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Skier View Post


    I have now tried to wire the ext drive through my airport which works and I can see it from both Macs, but the disk keeps spinning permanently.



    I have thought of another alternative which I would appreciate some views on, given my set up listed above how do I connect the 2 macs directly? At the moment I have a MBP running wireless through extreme on 802.11n. My mini is using the extreme as a bypass and is connected by ethernet.



    Is there any way to connect from my MBP to my mini without using wireless which will slow my whole system down?



    In simple terms I will send a request from MBP to extreme requesting access to mini, the question is how do I set this up?



    Thanks



    Richard



    Given the set-up you have described above I would recommend getting another Cat 6 cable and running it as a gigabit ethernet connection--you won't find a faster connection than that.



    If, however, you want to do this sans-router, I believe firewire will be your best bet.
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