Airport Extreme Hard drive disconnecting randomly

I just posted to another thread,FWIW.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3526741?start=120&tstart=0

Thanks for posting the link to the new thread.

My situation is interesting because I have the exact same configuration for a client that I have. There are two Apple Extremes and there is a 3TB Seagate hooked to the main router. After a few days the hard drive seems to go to sleep and is no longer accessible on the network.

I have since then tested it out by disconnecting the 3TB drive. It required a power source. I have now hooked up a 1 TB WD Passport drive that does not require power. This drive has been connected for at least a week and it has not gone down at all.

It seems as though the USB port on the Airport Extreme doesn't put out enough power. I just ordered a USB powered HUB. Hopefully when it arrives it will have more power and I can get the 3TB drive back in operation.

Thanks for reply. Be sure and post your result with powered hub, if it works for you I may take your lead and try it also ;-)

Will do. I expect the HUB to arrive in about a week and then I'll probably want to have it plugged in for about 4 days or so. In the meantime I'll keep the other drive in to see if it remains connected.

I'll report the results here. 🙂

I have the same issue. 2 macs running Mountain Lion. External has own power supply. I do have a powered hub, I'll see if it works for me.

Ultimately I gave up on the External drive connected to the Airport Extreme. I believe it has something to do with the way that Segate was controlling the power settings. I believe you need to make sure to have it connected directly to your computer first and modify it so that the hard drive will not power off by itself. Then you can connect it to the router.

I switched to a smaller drive that did not require a power supply. It is connected directly to the router and it has been working fine for several months. I have the same configuration on three different Airport Extreme routers and they are all working fine.

Tracy

This problem went away months ago. Not sure why. Did a semi-clean upgrade to Lion (no Migration Assistant, but kept filthy home directory). Then upgrade to Mountain Lion.

Guys, how did you resolve this?

I have Airport Extreme with Samsung D3 Station — a 3TB self-powered HDD. When I click Time Machine to use it for backups — it takes its minutes to hang, and then drive is inaccessible. Along with airport station, until i restart them. Although the internet connection (wi-fi) does exist.

Did a powered USB hub solution work?

You are reviving a long dead thread.. that is in the era of Lion.

So two important questions.

When I click Time Machine to use it for backups — it takes its minutes to hang, and then drive is inaccessible. Along with airport station, until i restart them.

This sounds like Yosemite.. is it?

The airport itself disappearing is clearly a greater problem than the disk not spinning up and is not even related to the issue in the thread.

That is a Yosemite network issue.

Second question.

What model exactly is your Airport Extreme? A1xxx from base or simply tell us if it is the tall one??

We can offer help but need to get those answers.

Maybe start a new thread.. since it is not really related to this one.

Probably not the same issue due to how long ago the original post was made, but I started having the problem of my external multi-drive self-powered USB drive unit plugged into my AEBS disconnecting similar to the OP. I can't be sure, but it _seems_ like this issue coincided with the update I did from 7.6.6 to 7.6.7 (I have the generation that this is the current max version, it's not the latest tall style AE).

Drives disconnect, it seems, when there is high use (doing a large scan/backup), which is the worst possible time and then won't reconnect until either my laptop sleeps and wakes or I reboot the AEBS. Since it seems like there might be a new AE model coming in the Fall, and I'm tired of dealing with this, I just gave up and bought a NAS so the router is out of the picture (even when I update). I read a bunch of reviews and specs and landed on the Synology DS216+II (at $300 it's not a no-brainer, but worth it for me). They also offer much cheaper single drive options for those wanting to spend less).

I read a bunch of reviews and specs and landed on the Synology

Yes, good move. It is much faster than USB plugged into an Extreme of any generation.. and faster even than the Time Capsule internal disk by a substantial margin.

The initial cost is higher but the end result is proper network storage.

And it works well with PC or Mac world.

check power settings on the drive it may be in power saving mode hence it drops off