Hard drive goes to sleep when connected to Airport Extreme

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Hard drive goes to sleep when connected to Airport Extreme

Happy Thanksgiving. Remotely backing up to a hard drive connected to a Airport Extreme at my Mom's house. I am using Crashplan. Mom has a MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. I have a PPC with Leopard in my household a state away. I think it is at 10.5.8. (I am at my Mom's for Thanksgiving). A few stars must align before this arrangement works:

My computer and my Mom's computer must be awake at the time of the backup.
The remotely connected hard drive must be awake.
Hard drive must be mounted to my Mom's laptop. When the hard drive goes to sleep the drive is no longer mounted.

The first point isn't too big a deal because I can schedule when both computers awake and go to sleep. The biggest hurdle is that the hard drive connected to the Airport Extreme goes to sleep after 6 minutes or so. The hard drive is no longer mounted, and so Crashplan no longer works. Crashplan backup works if I get my Mom to turn the hard drive off and on and the drive mounts.

I understand there are settings that can keep the hard drive awake and spinning all the time, but is not good because it is not energy efficient and premature wear and tear on the drive.

How can I get Crashplan to wake up the hard drive when an inbound backup request occurs? Sneakernet from my Mom to cycle the hard drive on and off is not a good option. Better yet, can I set up the Airport Extreme to not be dependent on my Mom's laptop? In other words, can the backup go straight to the hard drive without the need for the remote laptop to be turned on? I understand connecting the hard drive directly to the laptop would eliminate these problems, but I don't want my Mom to have to unplug and plug the hard drive in all the time. Trying to make this as invisible to my Mom as possible. Any suggestions? Forgot to mention, Crashplan version on the laptop is 3.4.2. I would assume this is the same version on the PPC since I set this up a few days apart.

Thanks for you help. This has been a thorn in my side for a while.

PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8), PPC Dual 2.0 GHz, 2.5 MB RAM

Posted on Nov 22, 2012 5:14 PM

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Answer 1

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Redman Author

Level 1

10 points

Nov 22, 2012 7:51 PM in response to Redman

I think I just answered my own question...Back to my Mac. I will be buying a new MacBook Pro for Christmas that will allow me to use this service offered through iCloud:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3486

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Answer 2

Nov 11, 2013 1:55 PM in response to Redman

I know I am on the late bus with this issue but I'm hoping you can help me out. I'm having a similiar issue with my macbook air, airport extreme, and my wirelessly connected hard drive. One of my problems also is that crashplan can't wake up that connected hardrive. I just cant seem to get crashplan to play nice with the airport extreme and hard drive. What I don't understand from this thread is how back to my mac solved your problem. What did back to my mack do that fixed your issue? I have never used back to my mac so I have no idea how it works. I'm not super techy but I manage. Thanks for any help you may give.

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