Using partitions for Windows and Mac on an external HD connected to AEBs

Simple question.....but the answer is not.

Things will work if the hard drive is formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled).....AND....the Windows backup application will work with a network drive. (Most Windows back up programs will only back up to a drive that is connected directly to the PC).

Something that you might want to think about........If you move the iTunes library to the drive attached to the AEBS......and you delete the iTunes library on your computer to save space......where will your backups of the iTunes library go?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'network drive', is that particular type of external HD that will allow wireless backups?

Network drive means plugged in by ethernet or wireless.. ie you computer has no control over the disk.. it is controlled by another device on the network.

External HD is plugged directly into the computer by USB .. although other connectors are possible.. Firewire, Thunderbolt are typical on mac not PC..

Over network you have no control over the disk.. you send the files over a network protocol and the files are stored on a disk that perhaps windows has no access to outside of the network.. eg HFS+ as used by Time Capsule or Airport Extreme for USB.

and another on an external drive for movies, with a combined size of nearly 2Tb, so I just want to have a single library on the one drive (attached to an Airport Extreme)

Difficult to consolidate the two libraries although you can place both on the same disk.. It will be slow over wireless.

There are two basic types of drives. One would be a "local" drive.....a device that is connected directly to a computer by USB or FireWire connection. The other type of drive is a "network" drive.....a device attached to your router that is available to all computers on the network.

Most PC software backup applications.....including the built in app in Windows.....will only back up the PC to a "local" drive. So, you have to look for a PC backup application that is capable of backing up the PC to a network drive. One that I've used.....although it has been some time since I've used a PC.....is Macrium Reflect. More info here: http://www.macrium.com/product/7/macrium-reflect-v6-home-edition.aspx

As far as your plans to not make backups of your media libraries.......I can only say that there are two types of users who do not make backups of their valuable data:

1) Those users who have lost their data....and won't make that mistake again

2) Those users who will lose their data.....they just don't know exactly when this might occur

I forgot to mention one other PC application that I have used in the past that will allow backups to a network drive....and that would be Genie Timeline Professional. It's similar to Time Machine in many respects in that you can go back in time and see how your PC looked at any given date in the past......but it is expensive. More info here if you are interested:

https://www.genie9.com/business/genie_timeline_pro/overview.aspx

The USB port on the AirPort Extreme is only USB 2.0......not 3.0.....and due to processor limitations on the AirPort Extreme, that port runs at about half of the speed of a USB 2.0 port that is connected directly to a computer. Not too thrilling.

So, chances are your wireless connection is going to be faster than the USB connection at the AirPort Extreme.

For that reason, it is not a great idea to try to run a "working" library on a drive that is connected to the AirPort Extreme. It might work OK if you want to give it a try, but this would not be something that we would recommend.

LaPastenague will likely have some other comments.....things like the iTunes library tends to get "lost" in this type of setup, so you should expect to be manually pointing the iTunes application at the library that it cannot find.

FWIW. I have attempted 1080p streaming on my local network to my Apple TVs ... both 3rd & 4th gen models. Initially I tried using an external USB HD (AirPort Disk) attached to my 802.11ac Extreme base station. Streaming over Wi-Fi (802.11n) was spotty at best. It worked 'better' when I switched to Ethernet between them. What actually worked best was to 'replace' the AirPort Disk with a dedicated NAS device. In my case, it was the Synology DS414.

What actually worked best was to 'replace' the AirPort Disk with a dedicated NAS device. In my case, it was the Synology DS414.

Yes.. !! 100% with Tesserax here.

The speed difference over the network is huge between a proper NAS which should reach very close to full gigabit speed.. ie around 100MBytes/s

(Gigabit is 1000Mbps and with some overheads ethernet should be able to handle very close to the full speed)

I was equally impressed changing all my stuff over to a Synology NAS.. particularly if you use PC.. the speed to the Time Capsule or USB drive plugged into the router was very poor.. but even Mac OS was not great.. the speed to Synology is huge improvement.

Although it is a substantial upfront cost.. I think using USB in networks (at least without USB3 and hugely powerful routers) getting the proper tools for the job is always best.

Copy a 1GB file to the TC. (Gen5 internal disk)

Copy the same file to the synology.

Ran out of edit time.. and the USB drive crashed for the test.. which is telling.

Copy the same file to the USB plugged into the Gen5.

It reaches a decent peak speed.. but as you can see from the first plot (using internal disk of the TC) it doesn't maintain speed. This is the problem of USB over network.. it just takes a lot of time doing the network chatter.

This is a second go.. the first one the disk dropped out completely and I had to power it off and on again.. Each plot also gives you idea of how long it takes.. so USB is indeed double the length of internal disk of the TC.