I already have a hard drive connected to my airport extreme, and ws wondering if i could use it as a network storage device

I already have a hard drive connected to my airport extreme, and ws wondering if i could use it as a network storage device. If so would I have to format it with two partitions , one for time machine and the other for network storage. Aprreciate any advice

If you have the hard drive connected to the AirPort Extreme....it is a network storage device.
One issue that you may want to think about is that Apple does not support Time Machine backups to a hard drive at the USB port at the AirPort Extreme.
In spite of this, some users who try this are able to make it work. Others have some limited success and some have no success.
It's not supported....so there will be no help from Apple in the event of problems.
If you decide to proceed with this, make sure that the partition for Time Machine backups is formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as other formats will not work with Time Machine.
Having a secondary backup plan would also be something that you might want to consider.

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Is it possible to have two hard drives connected to my airport extreme and use one to store my itunes library/iphoto and the other to backup via time machine? Will the second (larger) drive back-up both my mac HD and my other external airport drive?

For the past year I've been using an external hard drive (HD1) connected to my airport extreme as the back-up location for time machine. This has worked fine without any issues. What I would like to do now is to move my itunes and iphoto libraries off of my laptop (space constraints) and store them on a second external hard drive (HD2) connected to the airport extreme. I have successfully connected the second hard drive using a Belkin powered USB hub. What I am wondering is if I direct my time machine back-ups to HD1 will it back-up both my mac HD as well as HD2? I apologize if this has already been answered but i've read conflicting responses on various message boards and a number of responses were dated so I wanted to make sure I received the latest information.
thank you

kosty wrote:
For the past year I've been using an external hard drive (HD1) connected to my airport extreme as the back-up location for time machine. This has worked fine without any issues.
That may be true, but you need to know that backing-up that way is unreliable and not supported by Apple. See: Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk. Do not be surprised if those backups suddenly turn up corrupted.
What I am wondering is if I direct my time machine back-ups to HD1 will it back-up both my mac HD as well as HD2?
No. Time Machine cannot back up from any network location. The 3rd-party utilities CarbonCopyCloner and ChronoSync may be workable alternatives.

External hard drive connected to my airport extreme will no longer open, when navigating to it in Finder, the Finder window quits and reopens, cannot access hard drive, it is visible in airport utility, since the problem began I have updated firmware

External hard drive connected to my airport extreme will no longer open, when navigating to it in Finder, the Finder window quits and reopens, cannot access hard drive, it is visible in airport utility, since the problem began I have updated firmware on Extreme as well as both of my Airport Expresses. Hard drive is USB connected to Extreme.

Reboot the USB drive.. assuming it is powered.. or unplug and replug a self-powered drive.. (you should not use self-powered drives on AE before the latest model.. always use a powered hub).
Does the drive now appear in finder..
If not reboot both drive and the AE.. it should now appear.
If it doesn't work with direct connection try a powered hub.. that can help.

HT201250 Can I use Time Machine to backup a LaCie Hard Drive connected to an Airport Extreme onto a My Book that is connected directly to a Mac Mini?

I have a LaCie 2TB hard drive connected to a Airport Extreme Base Station. I also have a 1TB MyBook connected to a Mac Mini. My question is can you backup selected files (photos) from the LaCie drive to the MyBook drive using Time Machine, or any other software? If it will cost a fortune, I guess I can always just copy the newer files over.

Thank you for such a lightning-fast response Niel :-) Can I just double check with you the following ...?
The external drive where my iPhoto library is located has three partitions - Time Machine Backup, Pictures (where the iPhoto library is located) and SuperDuper Bootable Clone.
When you say 'Remove the external drive from the list of items set to be excluded from the backup, and then add everything else on it' - am I correct in thinking that I should remove Pictures partition from the items to be excluded but leave the Time Machine Backup and SuperDuper Bootable Clone as excluded items?
On my 2TB external drive (the one I'm backing up to) there are 5 partitions - Time Machine Backup, SuperDuper Clone, Pictures, Photo Archive and Document Archive. The Time Machine Backup is 700GB of which I still have 473GB available - when I include the Pictures folder that contains the iPhoto library that will use up another 148GB but I think there's still plenty of room to use it.
When you say if the partition contain the iPhoto library isn't dedicated to it it may be easier to create one which is, the only item I have on the Pictures volume is the iPhoto library so I think that it's dedicated to it. I was going to add images from the Pictures folder on my MacBook Pro but haven't done so at this stage so I won't do so. It wouldn't matter though, would it, if I copied the images from the Pictures folder on my MBP to the 'Photo Archive' partition of the EHD?
Thank you once more for your reply.
Tricia

Saving files to a hard drive connected to my Airport Extreme

I just upgraded to Leopard. I am unable to use Backup v 3.1.2 to save files to a hard drive i have connected to my Airport Extreme. Previously, using Tiger i was able to perform this task.
I use Finder and see my airport express network and my external hard drive. However, when i run my backup jobs using Backup the program can not located the external hard drives.

The discussion was helpful. My hard drive connected to my Airport Extreme is now recognized and i can backup files to a folder called 'Backups'. However, i am only capable of saving to this one folder. When i try to create subfolders and select one of them as my location in the Backup program i get an error message; "the selected location is not a valid destination". Any idea how to get around this problem?
Many thanks for the quick response to my previous mail.

HT201250 Time machine back up using a external hard drive connected to the Airport extreme

How can I setup a time machine back up using a external hard drive connected to the Airport extreme? Even better for time managment purposes I want to use the Eithernet Thunderbolt connection for the first back up and then through the wifi there after for daily routine Time Machine back ups.

You can attach a hard drive, but Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port at the AirPort Extreme are not supported by Apple, so it's not possible to say what your actual results might be.
If you decide to try this, it would be wise to have a secondary backup plan in place as well.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html

HT1449 will it work if i have the external hard drive connected to an airport extreme?

I recently purchased a Macbook Air 11.6" 128GB and I realized my itunes library is getting a bit bigger than expected. So I searched for ways to keep my MBA`s SSD with more space and I found this article.
I do have an 1TB external HDD connected to my airport extreme, and ive been transferring files mannually. But this solution seems quite interesting! having my itunes library all stored up on it seem cool!
so...will it work?

You can do it.. it is often unreliable.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2736425?start=45&tstart=0
Apple do not support or recommend it.. but you can turn it on.. there must be a million posts with the method.
http://pondini.org/TM/Airport.html
Q2 for the setup..
Good Luck!!

I can not access the hard drive connected to my airport extreme! Any thoughts?

I can not access the hard drive connected to my ariport extreme. When I use the finder to connect a server and type in the IP of the a. extreme, 10.0.1.1 it does not work and I get an error message.
Any thoughts.
A

Is the hard drive formatted for Mac in Mac OS Extended (Journaled)?
If yes, you may need to use a powered USB hub since the USB port on the AirPort Extreme is under powered and it is often necessary to use a powered hub....even if the hard drive has its own power supply
If both items check out above.....have you checked Finder Preferences to make sure that "Connected Servers" will be displayed?
Finder Preferences > General > Show These Items on the Desktop > Connected Servers
Then with the Finder menus displayed at the top of the screen click the Go menu
Click Network and the AirPort Extreme icon should be displayed
Double click the icon to mount the drive on the desktop

HT204057 Why does Time Machine no longer support external hard drives connected to an Airport Extreme base station?

I'm pretty sure that upto a few months ago I had a hard disk connected via USB to my Airport Extreme and I was able to backup all the computers on my home network. However, somehow over the last few months this had stopped happening. I am not able to select my network disks for time machine backup.
There is a very unhelpful sentence on Apple's website which simply says it does not allow backup to hard disks connected to Airport Extreme via USB. Does anyone know why this is? Is there a way around this? Can I connect a drive to my desktop computer and have other computers backup through the network to that?

This was never an approved configuration: OS X Mountain Lion: Disks you can use with Time Machine
Can I connect a drive to my desktop computer and have other computers backup through the network to that?
The above KB article indicates you can, though I have not personally tried it.

How do I view a file from a usb hard drive connected to my airport extreme base station on my ipad 2?

Hi,
I just purchased the airport extreme base station. I have a usb hard drive connected to the base station. Is it possible to view this hard drive on my ipad 2? I have been unable to do it. Any help would be appreciated.

You can't, not natively. An app like FileBrowser:
http://www.stratospherix.com/products/filebrowser/
may make this possible, though.
Regards.

Can i share my external hard drive connected to my Airport Extreme across a web connection?

I have a USB drive attached to my base station, and wanted to access the drive remotely. My ADSL connection comes through a Router, and is then delivered to the Airport Base Station.
It's probably simple with the right boxes, and instructions. I'm not sure about either tho'
I'm really only looking for a rough guide, and if it's even possible.
Any help would be great.
Ta.

You might give Screen Sharing a try or Back To My Mac. VPN is also an alternative.
Setting up and using Back to My Mac with an 802.11n-based AirPort base station, or Time Capsule
Supported router devices for Back to My Mac
Mac OS X 10.7 Help- Use Back to My Mac

Unable to connect to the hard drive connected to the airport extreme.

I have a new Aiport extreme base station and a usb hard drive is connected to it. But mac air is not finding it. Couldn't see it in the finder.
Thanks for your help.

Unfortunately, the AirPort cannot share out a drive formatted in either NTFS or ExFat. It must be in either HFS+ or FAT32. If the AirPort Utility can't recognize the drive, it can't be shared.

How can I get two hard drives connected to the Airport Extreme. There's only 1 USB port.

I believe I want to use TWO USB Hard Drives with my Airport Extreme, but it seems there is only 1 USB port.
I am currently using that USB port for my backup external hard drive (works with Time Machine). But now I have decided I want a common hard drive for music, photos, etc. for the two Macs in my home to share. I read that you do that via the same port.
What should I do? Is there a way to use 2 hard drives - a common shared and one for time machine?
Please advise and thank you!

singer777 wrote:
I believe I want to use TWO USB Hard Drives with my Airport Extreme, but it seems there is only 1 USB port.
Use a (powered) USB hub.
I am currently using that USB port for my backup external hard drive (works with Time Machine).
I hate to have to tell you this, but backing-up that way is unreliable and not supported by Apple. See: Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk.

Can i use time machine with a hard drive connected to the airport extreme?

Just wondering if there is any news on this since the last post was in 2008.
The Apple website info regarding the Airport Extreme mentions attaching a hard drive to the Airport Extreme, but I can't see whether that could be used for a Mac using Time Machine.

You can attach a hard drive, but Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port at the AirPort Extreme are not supported by Apple, so it's not possible to say what your actual results might be.
If you decide to try this, it would be wise to have a secondary backup plan in place as well.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/15139.html

How to move external hard drive (time machine) off airport extreme network?

For several years now, I've had an external hard drive connected to my airport extreme and it's servered as an awesome external back-up of my Macbook via Time Machine. However, now I've had to remove the external hard drive from my network (that's a whole other story). Anyway, when I connect the external hard drive to my MacBook, it doesn't recongize it as my Time Machine back-up. It is still looking for "My Book" on my network, which obviously doesn't exist anymore. Can I simply re-direct it to "my book" that is now connected via USB to my computer? Do I have to start over? If possible, I'd like to keep the back-ups I already had and simply continue with my new back-ups. Please advise! Thanks!

First thing to do is go to the Pondini tips page, then follow the link to his full TM site for all the details.

I already have a hard drive connected to my airport extreme, and ws wondering if i could use it as a network storage device

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