Time machine with USB drive on Airport Extreme

For 2+ years I used a USB hard drive shared off my Airport Extreme to host time machine backups. I just switched internet providers solely so that i could go back to using my airport extreme and sharing a backup disk. But time machine no longer shows it as an available drive...and I found this
AirPort base stations: Time Machine hard drive compatibility - Apple Support
which states: Time Machine is not supported with USB hard drives that are connected to an AirPort Express or AirPort Extreme device.
This is a pretty big step backwards as far as I'm concerned.....are there are any ways around it?

There is a way around it: buy the latest type of the Airport Extreme (the tall one). But even that solution isn't considered reliable: http://pondini.org/TM/AEQ2.html

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Time machine - migrate USB setup to AirPort Extreme ?

Hi,
I use to backup to an external USB drive using Time Machine, great!
Now that I have just bought an AirPort Extreme router and that I've connected the USB drive to it, I wonder if it's possible to backup over the air without erasing the previously backed up data?
I would like to use the backups already on the drive because it's so long to backup these 140GB again over the air.

There is a way around it: buy the latest type of the Airport Extreme (the tall one). But even that solution isn't considered reliable: http://pondini.org/TM/AEQ2.html

My MacBook w/ OSX 10.6.8 cannot access my external Time Machine Backup USB Drive. It says it is a Read Only drive. When I went to change permissions I found all pernissions were listed as "Custom" and I could not reset them to "Read Write". Any help!

My MacBook w/ OSX 10.6.8 cannot access my external Time Machine Backup USB Drive. It says it is a Read Only drive. When I went to change permissions I found all pernissions were listed as "Custom" and I could not reset them to "Read Write". Any help would be appreciated.

This can be done easily with ethernet.
Please follow the instructions strictly.
To make it easier I want you to do this overnight so you can turn off all your current connection to the internet.
Just go to the airport fan in to the top right and turn airport off.
Get ethernet cable and connect the laptop to the TC lan port.. ie <-> ones.
Press and hold the reset on the TC for about 10sec. until the front led flashes rapidly.
Open the airport utility.. go to manual setup and change the wireless to off. (so other people around you cannot join your network of one).
Ignore all the errors.. they won't stop the backup working.
Go to the TM and reselect the backup target disk as the TC.
It should start after 2min and run through to completion.
That is it.. for a backup of many GB it might take a few hours.. so make sure the laptop has power plugged in and the sleep is off.. (on early ones I think this is needed but I am a late arrival to the scene).. sleep doesn't affect later OS.

Time Machine with 2T drive connected to Airport Extreme base via USB

I got this to work - Time machine recognizing the drive in its "choose backup disk" menu.
I used it to store Apple Lossless audio on a big iTunes library, as well as for my Time Machine backups.
Whole system ran fine for 4 months until last week: while I was using iTunes with that remote library, adding audio to it... "Airport has detected a disk error"... My 2TB of disk turned into a very expensive brick.
The disk had to be recovered with Disk Warrior, detecting "19,753 directory entries with incorrect text encoding value" as part of a nice one-page-long list of other errors.
SINCE THEN: no matter what I do, the disk does not show up in Time Machine, even though I can access it via the network exactly as before.
Any ideas are welcome!

Apple does not support Time Machine backups to an AirPort disk (a USB drive attached to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBS)). (ref: Mac OS X 10.5: Time Machine doesn't back up to AirPort Extreme AirPort Disks) Although folks, like yourself, have gotten this to work initially, the long-term stability of the TM backups is highly suspect and why Apple doesn't support it. Sorry!

Time machine with network drive?

I heard I could use time machine with the hard drive I have connected to my airport extreme. Problem is I can't get the disk to appear in the time machine set up window as an option

Unfortunately Apple does not support Time Machine backups to a HDD attached to the AirPort Extreme USB port. Doing so is not recommended as most users who attempt this end up with corrupted backups over time. However, you could use a different backup solution with this configuration, just not Time Machine.

TIme Machine verification issue (Drobo and Airport Extreme)

Hello. I recently purchased a Drobo (1st gen, off ebay) to replace a 1TB WD MyBook I was using as a Time Machine backup and Media Server.
The Drobo is connected to an Airport Extreme base station over USB 2.0. My Mac is connected by ethernet to the Airport Extreme.
I followed the instructions on the Drobo website to create a separate 500 gb partition for Time Machine and the rest to accommodate my media collection. http://support.datarobotics.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/67/related/1/session/L2F 2LzEvc2lkLzdta1VHNmZr
The Time Machine backup seems to go OK, taking several hours to backup 160gb of data. Later on in the day, I'll get a message that says:
"Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you."
I've tried redoing the backup 4 or 5 times now. I've tried repairing permissions and the repairing the disk on both the Mac and the Drobo. I've learned that Time Machine Backups to Airdisks aren't officially supported by Apple (Although I never had a problem with my previous hard drive attached to the Airport Extreme, and Drobo say it's fine on their website - "Time Machine with a Drobo device connected to an AirPort Extreme or network attached (NAS) works. Just make sure you have updated Time Capsule or Airport Extreme to firmware 7.3.1 or later."
Every time, after a couple of hours, I get the verification warning and have to delete the backup and start again. I wouldn't mind just going and buying another 500gb external drive to just attach to my Mac, only I now have a separate 500gb volume sitting on my Drobo that I can't do anything with and I can't delete because I don't have anywhere else to transfer the data from my Drobo while I reformat it!
I'm running out of ideas and would love it if someone can offer some advice. Thanks guys!

Hi. Thanks for the response and sorry for the double post in the Airport forum. I'm really just not sure if this is a Time Machine, Airport or Drobo issue.
Everything is updated to the latest versions and I've been looking at the Drobo support site, but all I see is that Drobo is 'supposed' to work with Time Machine over Airport Extreme. However, I've tried everything I can think of and scoured forums over the weekend to try and get to the bottom of this. It's just bizarre that a cheap WD hard disk used to work, and a much more expensive Drobo doesn't.
I've posted the same message to the forums over at the Drobo site, so we'll see what comes of it. I'm not that hopeful. This mysterious black box on my desk seems to have a mind of its own. Even now, even though I'm not reading or writing any data to it, I can hear the Drobo accessing data on the disks and moving things around. I'm not surprised if it's a bit too much for Time Machine to handle. I'm just a bit annoyed that I followed all of the advice from Data Robotics to the letter and it doesn't work, even though it should.
I think I'll just give up and buy a firewire drive (I'm out of USB ports). I'm sure I'll find something I can move onto this redundant 500gb partition. Thanks for your help.

I have a Airport Time Machine at my computer, a Airport Extreme in the kitchen, and I want to set-up my Airport Express in my second office. How is this done so all show 4 bars on my iPhone?

I have a Airport Time Machine at my desk in the office with the router, a Airport Extreme to have WiFI in the kitchen connected by my ethernet, and I have a Airport Express in my second business office connected to the ethernet thru a switch.
Will this all work? And what is the best configuration?
Do I connect my Express to the Ethernet? From the installation notes it seems I do, but I'm not sure?
Any help on these is appreciated?
NoviceJM

It is on DHCP & NAT under router mode yet my isp is still the one issuing ip addresses to my devices instead of the router issuing them

Time Machine external USB drive not available at boot

I have a late 2012 iMac running Mavericks 10.4.9. I use Time Machine with a Toshiba 3TB external drive. The Toshiba drive is usually left powered up. Every time I boot the iMac and try to force a backup, Time Machine reports the Toshiba disk is not available. When I open Time Machine preferences, the Toshiba drive does not show until I power-cycle it and re-select it. Also occasionally it reports that I did not eject it properly. But it NEVER shows in Devices or on my desk top (like a thumb-drive does for example) so I wouldn't know how to eject it anyway.
Any ideas on where I am going wrong?
Thanks!

I also have a MacBook Pro with Leopard. I have a new 500GB Lacie d2 safe external drive that my computer recognizes but Time machine does not. Formating the disk in journaled Mac OS Extended format does not solve the problem. Lacie says they are working on it. Anyone have any ideas?

Can Time Machine backup USB Drive connected to Airport Extreme Base Station

I need a new N based wireless router. I would prefer to get just the $179 Base Station and not the $299 Time Capsule. I already have a nice external USB 500GB drive that I would connect to the AEBS. So, once I have this new wireless router/base station installed at home and I have the external USB drive connected to it, can my new Macbook Air with a USB connected 400GB drive be used to backup what is on the Macbook Air and also backup the 500GB USB drive info that is connected to the extreme base station?
Thanks
tj

I found this when searching Apple's web site but it is old, October 2007, and said it could not be done. Has this changed since then?
Here is what I found.
Mac OS X 10.5: Time Machine doesn't back up to AirPort Disks
* Last Modified on: October 26, 2007
* Article: 306833
Time Machine in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard can be used to back up to many kinds of Mac OS Extended-formatted drives, but it does not support AirPort Extreme's AirPort Disk feature.
Time Machine can back up to another Mac running Leopard with Personal File Sharing, or to a Leopard Server volume, or an Xsan storage device.

Any issue using Time Machine on USB drive with AirPort?

Are there any issues using a USB drive attached to an AirPort Extreme with Time Machine? My guess is no, but figured I would ping the forum and see if there's something I have not thought of. I know Time Capsule does this, but I don't have that - I have an AirPort Extreme.
The drive is within my network and not exposed to anyone unless they can connect
My password is required to access the Time Machine files
Any security implications not covered by these two points?
I'm currently using a USB drive I attach/detach from my MacBook Air and it would be much more convenient to backup to the drive connected to the AirPort. The first backup will probably take a day short of forever being over the air and not the wire, but after that I imagine it would nicely run in the background.
Thanks for any feedback or suggestions!

Are there any issues using a USB drive attached to an AirPort Extreme with Time Machine? My guess is no, but figured I would ping the forum and see if there's something I have not thought of.
The correct answer is yes. First off, Apple does NOT support Time Machine backups to external USB HDDs attached to the AirPort Extreme ... although they do for the Time Capsule.
Please check out this excellent Pondini article which provides some details on why this would not be a good idea.

Setting up a USB external Drive with USB Hub on Airport Extreme

I have successfully hooked up the Airport Extreme Base Station (n) with two printers using a USB Hub. I am now trying to hook up an external hard drive(acomdata 250 gb). When I plug the hard drive into the Hub and turn the drive on the Airport Extreme Base station resets to amber and flashes green for a second then resets to amber again and it keeps doing that until I shut the drive down. I have a Mac Book Pro and an iMac on the network as well as a HP pavilion a730n on the network. I am able to share files between the PC and the Macs; however I can't seem to share the external hard drive. I tested the external hard drive by hooking it up directly to the Mac book and after a few seconds it mounted correctly and I was able to read and write.
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Nick

I have successfully hooked up the Airport Extreme
Base Station (n) with two printers using a USB Hub. I
am now trying to hook up an external hard
drive(acomdata 250 gb). When I plug the hard drive
into the Hub and turn the drive on the Airport
Extreme Base station resets to amber and flashes
green for a second then resets to amber again and it
keeps doing that until I shut the drive down. I have
a Mac Book Pro and an iMac on the network as well as
a HP pavilion a730n on the network. I am able to
share files between the PC and the Macs; however I
can't seem to share the external hard drive. I tested
the external hard drive by hooking it up directly to
the Mac book and after a few seconds it mounted
correctly and I was able to read and write.
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Nick
What version of the AE firmware are you running? If you upgraded to 7.1, LOTS of people have discovered that Apple broke the USB connectivity for both disks and printers big time. With the 7.1 firmware version a few people can see the disks, but most people CANNOT see the printers.

How can I access USB drive on AirPort Extreme with iPad

Good day. I recently purchased an AirPort Extreme, and am very pleased. I thought I would take advantage of the ability to store files and videos of my children on my USB drive on the router. Installation was flawless, however, i cannot access the USB drive with my IPad. I have seen several postings about this, am i correct in reading that this is not possible without a 3rd party app? If that is the case, could someone point me in the right direction?

Have you tried this? (And is the Airport new enough that you can call Apple?)
*Manually mounting Mac OS Extended (HFS+) volumes*
*From the Finder's Go menu choose Connect to Server.*
*Enter the AirPort Extreme Base Station's LAN IP address (by default 10.0.1.1).*
*Enter the username and password required to access the AirPort Disk(s).*
*Select the desired AirPort Disk(s) from the available Volumes.*
*Manually mounting FAT16/FAT32 volumes*
*From the Finder's Go menu choose Connect to Server.*
*Enter the AirPort Extreme Base Station's LAN IP address preceded by smb:// (for example, smb://10.0.1.1 )*
*Enter the username and password required to access the AirPort Disk(s). Leave the Workgroup field empty unless you have assigned one in AirPort Utility.*
*Select the desired AirPort Disk from the available CIFS (Common Internet File System) volumes*

Time Machine Harddrive not recognized from Airport Extreme anymore

I've recently updated my Mac Book Pro (Mid 2010m 8GB) to OS X Mountain Lion. Already before I used an external Harddrive attached to Airport Extreme (Airport Utility 7.6.1) for Time Machine Backups. The Backups worked well, even after Migration to OS X Mountain Lion (10.8).
The Haddisk had always been visible from the finder and even an jailbreaked Apple TV. But this changed just yesterday with Finder and Airport Utility just not able to recognize the Harddisc anymore. I tried several things including:
- unplug the Airport Extreme for 1 hour from AC
- Reset/Restart Airport Extreme via Airport Utility App
- Reset Airport Extreme to factory settings and starting over with configuring the network again
- Turn off/on the respective Harddisk
Neither action was successful so far - while the drive can be accessed via direct USB connection still. The respective drive is Mac formatted (journaled) and - as already mentioned - had been working in this setup all the time (1 year at least).
Thank you very much for any hint/tip helping me to solve the problem!
Robert

Almigurt wrote:
Hi Pondini,
I've seen this before - but TM used to work for me this way very well.
That's kinda the point -- sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
However with my question it is not about Time Machine - it is about why my Harddisc is not anymore recognized by my Airport Extreme base station. It had been working since more than one year now - and then all of a sudden Airport Extreme stopped to show me the drive.
Try repairing it, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. Note that you have to repair both the disk and the sparse bundle the backups are in, separately.

Can you connect a USB drive to Airport Extreme or an Airport base for TM

Would like to backup MacBooks in 2 different scenarios with Time Machine. One is a USB external drive attached to Airport Extreme and the other is doing the same with an Airport base. Will both work? Also, I have been partitioning the direct USB attached hard drives so that I have a Time Machine partion and a copy of the internal hard drive. This allows my kids to boot from the external drive and still work in case the internal drive has failed or becomes corrupted. So far we have experienced 3 internal drive failures, one during finals and this has saved them. Can you boot from an external drive copy of the internal drive if it is connected to either an Airport Extreme or Airport base?

I am confused as on another site I saw that the Time Machine backup to Airport Extreme was working than broken by an update in 2008, then fixed again by another update in Oct. 2008. So is it officially supported or not. I cannot say that I am impressed with Apple's documentation and updates to what is supported and what is not.
Kappy, I do not see the concern with partitioning a drive and then taking backups to one partition and having a Restore created copy of the hard drive in another. The drive is partitioned and that should keep one partition from overlaying the other. The windows world had used partioning successfully for many years. Apple does have a slick ability to boot from a copy of the OS which is on an external drive. It has saved my kids multiple times when something has gotten hosed up on the internal drive, including a Mac mini with a drive failure during dinal exams and two drive failures on a Macbook. It lets the kids access the internet and get theri work done albiet with a static copy of the OS taken some time in the past. My son was even able to copy to the external drive all of his documents, music and photos off the internal drive that would not boot. Of course he had not learned the value of Time Machine at that point.

Time Machine doesn't see new AirPort Extreme

My old Time Capsule died. Hardware failure. Too bad. So I bought a new one, a 2TB AirPort Extreme. 'Upgraded' to OSX 10.9.1 (which crippled a lot of my software, and seems generally more buggy & slower than 10.6.8, but that's beside the point) just to be able to administer it. Setting up the WiFi network was easy. Fine.
Now when I go into Time Machine preferences and click on the "select backup disk" button, the new AirPort Extreme is not listed. There is an option for "Other Time Capsule." If I click on that, the AirPort Extreme shows up. OK. If I click on it, I get a window with IP info, etc. There's an option to "edit". Clicked on that but found nothing about setting up the Time Capsule. I tried clicking on the disks tab, but that returns an empty list of partitions and file-sharing options.
I tried reseting the device with the little button on the back and starting again. Same story. What am I missing?
To be clear, I am not trying to use an external disk. I am trying to use the 2TB disk I am told is inside the AirPort Extreme.

Is it possible to know from the serial number whether I have a misbehaving Time Capsule presenting itself as an AP Extreme, unaware of the hard disk it conceals, or a perfectly functional AP Extreme?
That would be a question for Apple Support.
http://www.apple.com/support/contact/
If you can locate a model number on the device....it might be on the bottom in very small print.......it will start with an "A" followed by four numbers.....we can tell you what you have.
But a clue might be that an AirPort Extreme sells for about $200. A Time Capsule sells for $300-400 depending on the size of the internal hard drive.
And to anyone from Apple reading this, could you please make your new software compatible with hardware you produced in last 3 yrs?
It is extremely unlikely that anyone from Apple will ever see your post on a user-to-user support forum. Best to contact Apple directly with your comments:
Apple - Time Capsule - Feedback

Time machine with USB drive on Airport Extreme

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