Will my Airport Express work as a device to plug in a USB remote back up hard drive ? I would use this as a 2nd Time Machine back up, but further away from my office. The Express works now for other use at this distance.
AirPort
No, the USB port on the AirPort Express will only support a USB printer. USB hard drives are not supported.
No, the USB port on the AirPort Express will only support a USB printer. USB hard drives are not supported.
Think of the AirPort Extreme as a fancy AirPort Express that will allow you to connect a USB hard drive to the port on the back of the device.
It sounds like you might have a Time Capsule already, so you could use the AirPort Extreme to connect to the network using either Wi-Fi or Ethernet. The wired connection is always preferable, but it may not be easy.....or even possible......to run the Ethernet cabling from the Time Capsule to the AirPort Extreme.
In that case, you will need to locate the AirPort Extreme where it can receive a strong Wi-Fi signal from the Time Capsule. If your current AirPort Express is connecting using Wi-Fi and working well, then an AirPort Extreme in the same location should work well.
Keep in mind that you will need to add a USB drive to the USB port on the back of the AirPort Extreme if you want to be able store data or back up to the USB drive connected to the AirPort Extreme.
So, if your Time Capsule is already backing up using Time Machine, you could set up the AirPort Extreme as a secondary backup location and have dual backups.
It would be better.......performance wise.......if you could consider connecting a USB drive to your current AirPort Extreme, not to a remote AirPort. In other words, for fastest backups using Wi-Fi, you want the iMac and current AirPort Extreme to be as close as possible to each other.
Time Machine backups are going to take longer over Wi-Fi than they do when a USB drive is connected directly to a Mac.
But, as long as the Express is working well now, I would expect an AirPort Extreme with an attached USB drive to be OK in the same location as the AirPort Express, just a lot slower for backups than if you had the USB drive connected to your "main" AirPort Extreme.
An AirPort Extreme would support a USB drive at its USB port. Go for the "tower" shaped version of the AirPort Extreme for this.
Note......the USB port on the AirPort is an old and slow USB 2 design, so expect backups to take twice as long or more to a drive at the USB port on the AirPort Extreme.
Thanks Bob !
Yeah, I know my Airport set up is kinda old and no longer supported, but it works for me. Have resisted purchasing new non-Apple stuff as the current stuff has worked so well for years. Maybe time to figure out a new setup.
Bob,
I want to make sure I understand you correctly, please bare with me. So if I get a renewed or used Extreme Tower style I could use my current Extreme to connect to an attached hard drive on the remote Extreme Tower ?
I see that used Extreme tower styles are pretty cheap on eBay and would be more than willing to give it a try for the price.
Thanks so much for your help, kinda venturing in to new territory for me.
I have a Extreme Base Station ( not Time Capsule ) as my primary WiFi hook up and a Express out in a workshop maybe 150' away. The Express has always worked fine. I use a backup hard drive connected to my iMac directly for the Time Machine backups.
I was thinking of connecting a back up USB hard drive out in the workshop just in case the iMac and Time Machine in the house was stolen or worse.
So based on what you have told me, if I get a Extreme tower for the workshop it should get the signal from the Base Station and be able to connect to the hard drive.
Again, Thanks for all the help in piecing this together for me.
I understand the speed issue. In this particular case speed is not a big issue. With Time Machine running in the background doing small incremental backups, it's not really going to bother me.
I recently got a Western Digital 14TB drive for the main Time Machine back up, so I have a 8TB drive to use for the remote backup in the workshop.
I have actually looked online for a hard drive with built in WiFi but haven't had much luck.
THANKS ! ! Saved me a lot of hassle trying to figure this out by myself. Do you have any ideas how I could make this plan work ? Maybe a newer model of a different brand of remote ?
AirPort Express for remote back up ?
