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Airport Extreme with Hard Drive?

1640 Views 10 Replies 7 Participants Last post by zim2dive, Jan 16, 2008

Dick Shelton

Discussion Starter · Jan 15, 2008

I'm sitting here with a dead Airport Extreme which ran very hot. It failed earlier than most networking equipment, but networking equipment always fails early. I can't think of two functions I would less like to have in the same box than a hot network chip and a hard drive.

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chefklc

· #2 · Jan 15, 2008

My Netgear gigabit switch runs hot as well; both of our cats like to sleep on it and on our Extreme basestation, which don't help things, either, but that's why you buy something with a good warranty. My guess is the new Time Capsule NAS will be built to handle it, plus there's always Applecare...

was your Extreme the new gigabit model?

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Dick Shelton

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jan 15, 2008

Gigabit, yes. I go through routers at three times the rate of other computer equipment. BTW, I also have a recently dead Actiontec router I got from Verizon with FIOS service. The new Airport Extreme NAS looks to have the same case as the old one from the pictures. I wish they had built the old AE to handle it!

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chefklc

· #4 · Jan 15, 2008

Quote:
The new Airport Extreme NAS looks to have the same case as the old one from the pictures.

Agreed, and now we know why wireless Time Machine backups via Airport Disk in the Leopard beta was mysteriously dropped in the final release.

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zim2dive

· #5 · Jan 15, 2008

I'd be wary.. massively long thread on the Apple Support Forums about how unreliable the AirDisk is on the Airport Extreme (I have the gigabit version)... no software update since last summer when the problem was reported to them (many many times)...

EDIT: Also be interested to see if they add the ability to use Disk Utility on the AirDisk..

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crayfellow

· #6 · Jan 15, 2008

All of this makes me wonder too... Aside from the convenient packaging, couldn't you have the same exact functionality by using a good quality 7200rpm 1TB USB drive with the original Airport Extreme? Same 'n' wifi, same disk space, etc.

It would potentially be cheaper, and as they are separate components the issue of reliability/broken network hardware would be a nonissue.

Thoughts?

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chefklc

· #7 · Jan 15, 2008

Quote:
Aside from the convenient packaging, couldn't you have the same exact functionality by using a good quality 7200rpm 1TB USB drive with the original Airport Extreme? Same 'n' wifi, same disk space, etc.

well, no, for several reasons.

The first "n" Airport Extreme version, inexplicably, didn't have gigabit ethernet, when every other Apple product sold with ethernet at that time HAD gigabit built-in.

An upgraded model eventually shipped with gigabit, but connecting enclosures to it via USB and actually using AirDisk proved disappointing. And Apple didn't seem to concerned about fixing that.

The Time Capsule model with its drive built-in, presumably, will out-perform anything connected over USB. The real issue, though, is this: was Apple pimping sales of these new Time Capsule models when it removed Leopard support for wireless Time Machine backups to drives plugged into an Extreme? And will that capability ever be added back?

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oztech

· #8 · Jan 16, 2008

i would have liked to have had my fairly new extreme with a hard drive perform

this but the cost of a new hard drive vs time capsule i guess time capsule it is since

i use a mac book pro and go from room to room.

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kenliles

· #9 · Jan 16, 2008

Quote:
Originally Posted by chefklc /forum/post/12827094

The real issue, though, is this: was Apple pimping sales of these new Time Capsule models when it removed Leopard support for wireless Time Machine backups to drives plugged into an Extreme? And will that capability ever be added back?

I'm guessing mostly a yes on that one; Although, I imagine they increased reliability in the software substantially - I just ordered one; I'm also wondering if USB connected additional drives will be handled now reliably ; If so, it would be perfect for the music and photo shared storage that doesn't need the bandwidth; use the internal 1TB for video and time machine...

Of course, if not you could just keep stacking Time Capsules I guess - the price is pretty good....

ken

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Jshwon

· #10 · Jan 16, 2008

I think this product would do well for me. I was planning on buying a 500GB LaCie drive which I believe is $300 anyway. For the same price I could have 500GB of NAS plus wireless "N" for my iphone and laptops etc. My Mini and soon to have iMac will be wired into the Airport/Time cap. So those would be backed up over the wire. Seems like a pretty good deal to me. Good job on this one.

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zim2dive

· #11 · Jan 16, 2008

Quote:
Originally Posted by chefklc /forum/post/12827094

The Time Capsule model with its drive built-in, presumably, will out-perform anything connected over USB.

Er, why will it out-perform... Has anyone ripped one open to see if the interface to the drive is anything other than USB2->PATA/SATA?

Searching Apple's website I don't see any support docs yet that might shed light on this... but given my experience with the gigabit AEX USB HD flakiness, I would strongly advise waiting and watching to see what experiences the early adopters have.

On the plus side, at least Apple finally used a 3.5" HD (one would assume to reach those densities)..

Mike

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