6th Gen Airport Extreme locks access to USB drive?

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Level 2

154 points

6th Gen Airport Extreme locks access to USB drive?

I just upgraded my 1st-gen Time Capsule to a 6th-gen Airport Extreme. My understanding is that I can run Time Machine backups to it in more or less the same way I could with my Time Capsule. What has me confused, however, is that I don't seem to be able to access the disk from more than one user account at a time. If one user has the disk open, the other user is denied access (a small "no permissions 'do not enter'" icon in the bottom right). On my Time Capsule, I seem to recall that I could switch between users and each would have appropriate access to thr drive (e.g. two admins would have admin privileges), and Time Machine would chug away despite switching users. This has not been the case (so far). Switching to a second user while TM is running eventually results in an error regarding the drive not being availble. In fact, last night, I succeeded in destroying almost the entire hard link structure by switching to a different user after starting a delete operation on the first (had to format the dive and start over). As far as I can remember, I never had these issues with my Time Capsule. My understanding was that the 6th-gen Airport Extreme could take the place of a Time Capsule. Is this not the case? How is the way an Airport Extreme treats a network drive different from the way the TIme Capsule did? Is there just some setting somewhere I've missed?

Posted on Jul 30, 2013 10:41 AM

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Answer 1

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LaPastenague

Level 9

67,226 points

Jul 30, 2013 3:04 PM in response to Xian Rinpoche

Tme machine is not dependent on the user.. it is local machine with specific access to backup the whole drive including all users.. but even the early TC will block two users access to the disk at the same time on the same computer.. I think you can access the TC disk from two different computers. I do not know exactly why the limitation was set but it is there for sure..

The 6th Gen AE does change the scenario for TM being able to backup to external drive plugged in.

My understanding was that the 6th-gen Airport Extreme could take the place of a Time Capsule. Is this not the case? How is the way an Airport Extreme treats a network drive different from the way the TIme Capsule did? Is there just some setting somewhere I've missed?

I have seen nothing to suggest the AE should behave any different to the TC.. but it will depend on the security access you have set to the drive.. what is the AE set to?? (what was your old TC set to??)

I don't have a Gen6 so I am not sure what is possible.. but normally security is set at 3 or 4 levels.. guest access read and write.. most open.. least security.. to user accounts where access is limited to specific users with account details on the TC.. this is the most secure.. with AE password and disk password as in between levels.

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Answer 2

Xian Rinpoche Author

Level 2

154 points

Jul 31, 2013 9:08 AM in response to LaPastenague

Thanks for the response. It sounds like the behavior I'm experiencig (especially accessing a network share from two accounts on the same machine) is by design. For the time being, I've moved back to a local TM backup and will just use the Airport USB port for a basic network share that won't require multiple user access at the same time. I may return to this topic at a later date, but as of right now, your answer solves the problem for me. 🙂

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