Airport Express and USB Hard drive and extremely slow performance

HI Guys,
I seem to having a lot of trouble with an Airport express and a Lacie 1TB drive. While I have solved several problems by updating firmware and enabling journalling on the Lacie, I am still having problems with extremely slow performance with my macbook, particularly using itunes and Firefox.
Any ideas and any further information needed?
Regards
BJDprivate

BjdPrivate wrote:
HI,
I formatted it using the Lacie setup program for Mac and later enabled it for journalling using Disk utility. This seemed to solve a lot of the recognition problems I was having, however the I-Tunes and firefox performance is still atrocious. If I do Need to completely reformat it using Disk Utility, will I lose my files on the disk now?
not if you move them to a temporary location before you start.
yes, you are better of formatting the drive with DU.

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Anybody know how fast the read/write speeds are with a USB hard drive and the Airport Extreme Base Station?
My Setup
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Thanks!

ishjen wrote:
Anybody know how fast the read/write speeds are with a USB hard drive and the Airport Extreme Base Station?
Welcome to Apple's discussion groups.
Apple's AirPort base stations aren't known for fast file serving, but for most purposed they're fast enough.
I can't comment specifically on your Aperture plan, but with some software it's important to avoid simultaneous access by more than one user.

Usb hard drive and AirPort Extreme

I have been using an external usb hard drive connected to my Airport Extreme to store music which is then picked up by a Sonos system to play music even when my iMac is switched off - has been working great. However I became aware recently (and I think this pre-dates upgrading my iMac to Mountain Lion) that my external hard drive no longer shows up as a shared drive within Finder. If I go into Airport Utility / Edit / Disks - 'enable file sharing' is checked. Disk Utility doesn't see the drive but I'm not sure that really means anything as a network drive rather than a drive connected directly to the iMac.
Has some recent upgrade disabled network drives on Airport Extreme's (ie assuming we are all now backing up to iCloud so don't need it)?
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OK, I feel silly on this one.
After looking for issues with the airport and not finding any and needing a file from my backup drive, I had to connect it up to my PC. That's when I found my solution.
The Drive I had connected had stopped responding. That's why the Airport was not showing it and not allowing connections. I had power cycled the drive a few times while testing, just not long enough. I unplugged the drive for 2 minutes, all cables, then reconnected. After about 5 minutes, the Airport was able to confirm the drive and turned the share back on.
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AE extreme dies after connecting USB hard drive and killing it too!!!!!

I finally got around to connecting an external LaCie Rugged hard drive to my AE via the USB port on the back of the AE. Both devices were working properly before I did this. I was intending to activate the drive as a shared drive or a Time Capsule drive. I then opened the Time Machine menu and opened the Preferences menu item and tried to select a backup disk. No disk was found.
Shortly after this step I noticed that the AE light had turned off. I plugged the hard disk into the Mac using a Firewire connection and it was DEAD. Disk Utility will not list the disk. The AE hard boot does not work so it is DEAD too. $400 worth of devices now DEAD and beyond warranty.
Yes I now realize I should not have expected the AE to treat an USB drive as a Time Capsule. Anyone else done this and had the same loss of AE and hard drive?

Hi DP,
The first computer I could actually put my hands on was a DEC PDP8. This was after the punchcard stack era had waned. Booted it up using front panel switches to input binary code to start the tape drives and load the programs. After that came the Data General model that was just as dumb but smaller and noisier. Computers were a pain in the * until I got my first Mac Plus in '86.
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Has anyone had any experience with Apple's .Mac Backup 3.1? I have just setup my network with the new Extreme Base Station "N" with my Express being the main base station connected to my cable modem. When I go to use Backup 3.1 to backup my user folder to the wireless external USB hard drive, it takes forever! Is this normal?

RD2516:
That's exactly what I did last night to backup my wife's MacBook Pro home folder (about 45GB). I hooked up the USB drive directly to the laptop and used Backup to make a "full" backup. (This after trying it wirelessly and realizing it would've taken all night).
Then, just for fun, I forced another backup a few minutes later. It was very quick, as expected. It spent a few minutes reading the files (64000 or so) and comparing them, but then did the very small incremental backup in seconds.
So, I think now that I have the biggest part of her home folder backed up, using Backup every night should be pretty easy.
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Airport Time Capsule as Hard Drive and Wireless Router

Hello,
My girlfriend and I want to buy Macbooks. A Macbook Pro 128 GB and a Macbook Air 128 GB. 128GB each is not enough for our needs and are also interested in buying an Airport Time Capsule with 2 TB rather than upgrading to 256GB/512GB, which is more money for less storage space.
My question is, can we use the Airport Time Capsule as a wireless router AND as a wireless hard drive?
Will I be able to keep the Time Capsule at home working as a wireless router for my girlfriend to surf the web and at the same, if I am at the library, as a wireless hard drive via internet so I can download the files i need?
If the network is down I would like to be able to use it via cable as a wired hard drive. Is that possible?
I searched for days for an answer but I could not find a definitive answer to my question.
Thank you!
Best regards,
Liviu

My question is, can we use the Airport Time Capsule as a wireless router AND as a wireless hard drive?
Yes. The Time Capsule has a built-in hard drive and you can add additional USB hard drives (via a USB hub) to its USB port. All of these drives can be shared out and will appear in the Finder as network drives.
Will I be able to keep the Time Capsule at home working as a wireless router for my girlfriend to surf the web and at the same, if I am at the library, as a wireless hard drive via internet so I can download the files i need?
Yes, that is also possible. Please check out the following AirPort User tip for more details on how this can be set up.
If the network is down I would like to be able to use it via cable as a wired hard drive. Is that possible?
If you mean if the wireless network is down can you still access the Time Capsule's hard drive via an Ethernet connection, then the answer is yes.

Backup a dual boot iMac with OSX + Vista to Time capsule and USB hard drive

I have just bought a Time Capsule which is now working as my WiFi Network base station and backs up an iMac and a Macbook. The iMac has both OSX and Vista (using Boot Camp) and I was using a USB Hard Drive that has 2 partitions (HFS+ for the Mac; NTFS for Vista) to back up the iMac. Rather than leave this attached to the iMac just to back up the Vista partition I would like to move it to the Time Capsule's USB port and use it as NAS. The idea being that it becomes a NAS with one partition used to back up the Windows data when I run the iMac with Vista and the other partition to archive the Time Machine backups from both the iMac and Macbook. I tried to connect it as it was but got an error and reading the forum it seems that it won't work unless both partitions are HFS+ or FAT. If I reformat the NTFS partition to HFS+ will I be able to use the built in backup function of Vista to back up the Vista partition to the USB hard drive? I read somewhere else that Time Capsule takes care of the formatting for an external NAS drive and Windows will be able to read and write to it even though it's not NTFS. Any ideas comments appreciated.

This is crude but if you need a work around, just plug the USB drive directly into the iMac.. copy the files to it.. then plug it into the TC.
You also do not need to use the TC as an intermediary between your iMac and MBP.. just turn on sharing in the computer.. so you can directly copy files from one to the other.. Macs have public access directory preconfigured for each user account.
As far as mounting the TC..
In finder use Go, Connect to server.. and type.
AFP://TCname or TCipaddress
Where TCname is the actual name of the TC.. I strongly recommend you follow SMB network rules.. ie if your TC has a name like
Fred Blog's Time Capsule 2445566.
It is too long.. it has spaces and it has non-alphanumeric characters.
Shorten it to FredTC
No spaces no characters that are NOT alphanumeric.
TCIPaddress is simply the standard IP.
You can also use CIFS://TCname which according to the article forces the connection back to SMB1 rather than SMB2 which as usual is broken.
But I would definitely use AFP if possible. I cannot understand the decision to move to SMB as standard.

LaCie d2 195 GB USB hard drive and new iMac

Has anybody had a problem with a LaCie d2 drive that is connected via USB instead of FireWire? I have both types of external hard drives; the FireWire connected LaCie has worked flawlessly, as has a Seagate 300GB FireWire drive. But my poor little LaCie 195 GB USB hard drive bit the dust when I tried to copy my iPhoto library from it to the hard drive of my new iMac Intel Core. The entire Mac froze up, even though there was disk activity on the LaCie. After waiting for 25 minutes for the Mac to unfreeze, I finally manually powered down the system. Unfortunately this corrupted my LaCie disk, and it could not be repaired using Disk Utility. Even when I tried to repartition the drive, Disk Utility simply hung to the point where I had to do a Force Quit to get out of it.
I forgot to mention that I was connecting the LaCie through a powered USB 2.0 hub - that could be a source of the problem, but it worked flawlessly in my iMac G5. I did reconnect it directly to a USB port on the iMac, but still could not get Disk Utility to repartition the drive.
Luckily I had a secondary backup of my photo and music files, or I'd really be crying right now.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
JD
PowerBook G4 12 Mac OS X (10.4.4)
PowerBook G4 12 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Mac 1 Ghz G4 1 gig Ram Os 10.4.5
My Firewire connected LaCie Bigdrive started disconnecting spontaneously with a complaint from the iMac that it was disconnected improperly.
Finally it did so once more and has not mounted via FW since. However, USB does mount it but big files take all day to transfer.
I took out the Maxator from the LaCie drive and put it in a FW/USB caddy, ok for a while then the same story. USB only mounting.
Informed with some confidence by a poster on Bombich's website
( http://forums.bombich.com/viewtopic.php?p=25658#25658 ) that it was the boot drive OS
Tried new cable. repaired boot drive disc, repaired permissions, ran DiscWarrior over it, repaired permisssions, ran downloaded 10.4.5 combo, ran DiscWarrior over it and finally repaired permissions again.
No Joy.
i would most appreciate useful suggestions.
Regards and thanks in advance
Anoop in the UK
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Apple TV and USB Hard Drive

Looking at Apple TV (ATV), and noting that it has a USB 2.0 port: Can you increase storage of ATV by adding a USB external hard drive and if so is the external hard drive the equivalent of a larger internal hard drive? The price difference in the 40GB and 160GB ATV is greater than the price of a quality 500GB external USB 2.0 drive.
I also wish ATV would allow you to use ATV as a PC internet browser and your TV as a monitor to display more than just youtube video. ATV could make inroads into cable TV suitable sub for browser video--at least for those of us who do not want 200 channels of junk from cable/dish.--Ah, there are things yet to be developed.

forrests wrote:
Does Applecore LLC's product, aTV Flash v.3.2 allow you to both add external USB functionality such as an external hard drive and allow web surfing via internet browser within Apple TV--that is install a browser on ATV and browse on AppleTV using your high def TV as the monitor?
If so it is just what I am looking for.
as that product is essentially "hacking" the appletv, you would probably be best discussing that elsewhere (like whoever it is that makes this hack). as this is an official apple support forum it is against the Ts&Cs to discuss hacking or modifying.

Printer and USB hard drive are not detected by TC

Two dys ago I got me TC, I added it to my existing WLAN and startet the initial time machine backup.
Worked fine. I was also able to connect a Windows-Notebook to the TC, using it as an network share.
But I can not see a USB printer (HP PSC 2110) or a USB hard drive, I plugged into the TC.
Even if the printer might not be supported the hard drive should be visible in the air port utility. But there is no furter hard drive listed...
(The hard drive is my former time machine hard drive, OS Extended.)
Message was edited by: oktolyt

Use an USB hub with its own power supply. The limitations on the base station's USB port, aside from the fact that it only has one, will still apply.
(101195)

External USB hard drives working very slow and/or not recognized. Help!

This probably started after my Yosemite upgrade, but my external usb hard drives either aren't working well or not being recognized. It's taking forever to write files to my external Seagate Free Agent USB 2.0 through front ports and my thumb drives aren't mounting (they have shown up for a second or two, then nothing). Is there a fix? I'm on an early 2008 mac pro with Yosemite 10.10.2.
Thanks!

Do an SMC reset using this slightly-modified procedure:
Resetting the SMC for Mac Pro, Intel-based iMac, Intel-based Mac mini, or Intel-based Xserve
1.Shut down the computer.
2. Unplug the computer's power cord.
[2a. Press the power-on button to discharge the power capacitors.]
3. Wait fifteen seconds.
4. Attach the computer's power cord.
5. Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.
in all cases, the stated times are recommended minimums, and there are no maximums.
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) - Apple Support

Airport Express with printer & hard drive with Time Machine

I have a MacBook that I'd like to backup its data. Concerned about the following (in level of concern from highest to lowest): theft, crash, fire.
I currently have an Airport Express with a Brother printer attached to it that my PC and MacBook print to.
I am really in a dilemma as to what to do. I was looking into Carbonite to get an offsite backup location of my data. (I figured offsite would cover all concerns of losing data due to theft, fire, or just a crash) However, Carbonite does not hold onto data you delete (ie, my photos and videos will fill up my hard drive eventually and I'd like to just archive them in one central spot when I am done accessing them on a regular basis-- ie delete them off my MacBook hard drive). That is like $55/year to do Carbonite... but, the only thing that will help me with over a hard drive in my house is a fire (and theft if a burglar were to find where my backup drive was in the house).-- Of course, I'd probably want a different location for my hard drive for that reason -- so, I'd have to buy another airport or just a time machine that has the wifi built in.
I've read lots of issues with the Western Digital trying to download programs onto your computer... I have one for my PC that I backed up photos manually and it did try to install programs when I attached it to my PC... not so much my Mac when I took some photos off it. I looked into getting another portable hard drive at Costco for my Mac, but realized that it would require reformatting to use on my Mac (as it was built for a PC).... something I wasn't sure if I was computer-savvy enough to do or if I did do it, would I end up with issues later on?
Anyhow... in the end, what do you all do to backup your data, especially photos and videos? Do you have smaller hard drives that you back up to and then when full move them to an offsite location? Can you have more than one "hard drive" backing up..... I was thinking it would be nice to have one larger hard drive that would potentially hold all my photos and videos so I can access anytime, but then have smaller drives of the same data that I can take to a safe deposit box and use as my super secure backup (no fire, no theft, no crash).
btw, When doing time machine, does it keep all the metadata with each photo?
Burning CD's is time consuming.... and, I have heard there are different qualities of disks out there... archival v. not... how long do the archival last v. the non-archival... or is that more of an issue for future generations not being able to access our photos?

You need to remember that the Time Capsule is both a wireless router and a hard drive all in one enclosure. If you don't need a wireless router, around $150 of the $300 for a Time Capsule is going to be in the router portion of the device.
The nice thing about the Time Capsule is that it is a network drive. All Macs running Leopard or Snow Leopard will be able to back up automatically to a single device. The first generation of Time Capsules about two years ago had some power supply problems that affected some users. Apple announced a program for these users to replace their Time Capsules.
So, it depends on your requirements. If you are looking for a new, dual band wireless router and want to backup your Macs running Leopard or Snow Leopard automatically using ethernet or wireless, the Time Capsule is a logical choice.
If you don't need a new router, then you'll need to look at a separate hard drive that will be attached directly to the computer using the USB or FireWire port. If you have two Macs, you'll have to get two hard drives if you want to do Time Machine backups correctly.
Most hard drives can be reformatted to work with Mac if you don't mind a few extra steps and Disk Utility (Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility) does not look too complicated for you.
Message was edited by: Bob Timmons

Usb hard drive on extreme not showing in time machine

Hi
I have connected a usb hard drive to my extreme but can not see it in time machine. I can see it with finder.
Help please

Did you download the latest firmware for your Airport Extreme? When I first bought mine, Time Machine was not supported. A few weeks later a firmware update was released that allowed Time Machine support, and Time Machine worked fine for me after that.

What's the difference between choosing "reinstall mountain Lion" and erasing hard drive and booting from base system?

I would like to know what the difference would be with the following two scenarios, both starting from the command + R menu at startup:
1. Chose the picture of the mountain lion "reinstall osx mountain lion
2. Erase the main hard drive, and then boot from "OSX base system"
If someone upgraded my macbook to mountain lion, did that upgrade also include a recovery partition and is that what one of these options is?

I would like to know what the difference would be with the following two scenarios, both starting from the command + R menu at startup:
1. Chose the picture of the mountain lion "reinstall osx mountain lion
2. Erase the main hard drive, and then boot from "OSX base system"
If someone upgraded my macbook to mountain lion, did that upgrade also include a recovery partition and is that what one of these options is?

Airport Extreme AC (5th Gen) and USB Hard Drives

I just got a new iMac.
Previously I had three external hard drives chained together directly via firewire 800 on a Mac Mnin. In the old configuration, Time Machine backed up to one of HDs pretty quickly. Since the new iMac doesn't have firewire - I took those same hard drives - using their USB 2 connections and put them on a hub connected to Airport Extreme. I see them under shared drives and access is great - but the back up speed is not very fast. Is there a better way to connect these drives for the purposes of Time Machine backups? They are formated Mac OS exteneded, etc
Thanks.

The confusing part to me was that the new Extreme has a USB2.0 spec?
It is easier and cheaper.
USB3 spec causes 2.4ghz wireless issues.
See http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2423604,00.asp
In a wireless router.. that aint good.. and some manufacturers have had issues.. Asus for example. Their USB3 are useless in several of the routers because they did not shield well enough.
Internally the AC version AE is same chipset as the Asus.. they could have used USB3 which is built in.. but I think went conservative and decided not to as they were faced with early release of hardware they didn't understand. And so they are still having issues with the basic hardware.. imagine throwing in USB3 wireless issues.
All of the above is total and utter speculation on my part. Apple are the most secretive company in the world.. they don't even own up to mistakes.. they never tell you what they are doing or why. No apple rep will say I am right or wrong.. total PR blackout.
But IMHO that is why you should have bought a Time Capsule which has a SATA interface inside.. and is very much faster than USB2. The cost increase is only what the hard disk costs.
No doubt gen7 or gen8 will suddenly come out with USB3. It always pays to keep some features up your sleeve even if the chipset manufacturer has them built in.

Airport Express and USB Hard drive and extremely slow performance

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