I attached a new, properly formatted Western Digital USB external drive to my Airport Extreme base station. I followed directions to set it up including using Airport Utility and changing the disc settings.
But when I open Time Machine Preferences, I can't get Time Machine to "see" or find the new drive connected by USB to my Airport base station. What can I do?
Best,
-- Josh
MacBook Pro with Touch Bar
Disk does not show up on airport utility tab.
Then, it will not ever show up as a Time Machine destination until it does appear in AirPort Utility.
When you say that the drive is properly formatted, how exactly is it formatted? Post back if you do not know how to check this.
The drive needs to be formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled), which is also known as HFS+
What version of AirPort Extreme do you have? We ask this because only the most recent "tower" or "tall" version of the AirPort Extreme will officially support Time Machine backups to an attached USB drive.
Unfortunately, the A1354 is currently listed as "Obsolete" by Apple as far as support is concerned. The product was discontinued in June 2011, so your AirPort is at least 9 years old and as much as almost 11 depending on when it was placed into service.
If the hard drive really is formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled), it should show up in AirPort Utility and you might be able to store data on the hard drive.
Unfortunately, the USB port on the A1354 is an ancient USB 2.0 design that may or may not be compatible with newer hard drives. In addition, the USB port is underpowered, so you may need to use a powered USB hub if you want to "see" the drive when it is connected to the AirPort Extreme......even if your hard drive has its own power supply.
But......as I noted previously, only the most recent "tall" or "tower" shaped version of the AirPort Extreme officially supported Time Machine backups to an attached USB drive. So, even if you can get the drive to appear in AirPort Utility, I doubt that you will be able to use it for Time Machine.
Not sure how much time you want to spend working on this, but frankly the A1354 AirPort is overdue to fail, so you might want to start thinking about a different approach.
Drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Airport Extreme is A1354, which I've read is 4th generation, a flat square shape, not a tower.
Not sounding promising. But I do appreciate the help and guidance!
-- Josh
Does the disk show up on the airport utility disk tab?
This must work before you can do anything else.
Will continue this once we get a reply.
Are you running Catalina on the computer? It has real issues with Time Machine to network targets.
Why don't you just plug the USB drive into the computer and do a backup.. at least you have a backup that way.
It won't work over the network but at least works locally.
If you want to use it over the network and the disk is showing up in Airport Utility.. simply mount the drive in Finder. Once you do that it should work in Time Machine.. Again tell me if it fails.
Mostly Time Machine is not great and we recommend using a 3rd party like Carbon Copy Cloner.
Disk does not show up on airport utility tab.
Running Catalina. I checked the Airport Extreme base station. It is model A1354, the 4th generation from what I read.
My preference is to use wi-fi network for backups over plugging in backup drive to computer periodically because I don't remember to manually do backups very much.
CCC is still around? I used it before the great innovation of Time Machine. Haven't thought about non-Time Machine alternatives. Networked option seems best for ease of automatic backups. But maybe I don't have that option.
time machine can't find USB airport backup drive
