“Apple announced its new Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS) this week with a bit less fanfare than enjoyed by its other two new products. Sure, the new AEBS won’t change the world, but it does have one new feature that will bring joy to quite a few households. Apple calls it AirPort Disk, and it provides cheap, Apple-simple network storage to home networks,” Chris Stone writes for O’Reilly’s Mac DevCenter.
Stone writes, “The current version of the AEBS includes a USB port that allows network sharing of whatever USB printer is plugged into it. The new version uses a similar USB 2.0 port, but now allows you to plug in a USB storage device, which then becomes shared over the network. You can also plug in a USB hub if you need to share both a printer and disk, or multiples of them. Apple’s not the first to do something like this, but as usual, makes it the easiest.”
Stone writes, “You can attach just about any USB hard drive, formatted either as HFS+ or FAT, and it will become available for sharing using both AFP and SMB protocols and therefore accessible like any other network volumes to Mac, Windows and (presumably) Linux clients on the network.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Mike H.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Apple’s new AirPort Extreme supports 802.11n, enables wireless streaming of HD media – January 10, 2007
Apple introduces new AirPort Extreme with 802.11n – January 09, 2007
F’n sweet!
Sounds great for wireless network backup and massive multimedia storage.
And be double sure to secure your network especially with a drive hanging off of it.
Although, I do enjoy driving into neighborhoods and be able to join open networks.
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Anybody know if multiple computers can access it directly as a source for iTunes and iPhoto?
Linksys routers have had this for a long time. Way to “lead”, Apple…
Why not FIREWIRE???!!!
To me, this was the best news from macworld. This, with a macmini core 2 duo – wireless n, will bring my content to my TV. Not Apple TV.
I so wish this had a firewire 800 port on it, of course, I know that the airport isn’t as fast as that but if they combined it with a gigiabit ethernet port it’d be sweet.
My AEBS is only a year or so old, so I don’t want to replace it, but I have been wanting networked attached storage for a while now. I hope apple releases a firmware update for the old AEBS, cause I am saving my money for an iPhone. 😀
So why didn’t they just push a firmware upgrade to allow this on the Airport express?
No upgrade for older BSs because they do not have USB2 – you need this for the HDs.
How about a Apple miniRAID system with the same form factor (though higher or stackable) that could sit underneath it? Going to be needing somewhere to back up all that iTunes data.
Seriously. However, from reports I hear, it is basically a computer, so, I imagine you could hack it to do something like that.
I wonder if it will work with a Windows PC on a network. At present my Windows machine cannot see the USB printer attached to my base station directly, but rather through a network connection to my iMac….
Anyone know?
Ben, to make your Windows PC see the printer in your current base station, you need to download Bonjour for Windows from http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/bonjourforwindows.html
“Why not FIREWIRE???!!!”
Because it is over the network…it wouldn’t make a difference.
This is a great feature. I’m glad you can attach a USB hub and share multiple devices.
There is a version of the “miniStack” external hard drive case that is USB only (no FireWire). It’s sold by NewerTech through OWC (macsales.com). That drive would be perfect for this application because it is relatively cheap, has a USB hub built-in with three ports, and allows purchase of empty case to add your own drive. And it has the Mac mini footprint, which happens to be the same as this new base station, so you can put the drive directly under the base station.
> So why didn’t they just push a firmware upgrade to allow this on the Airport express?
I think this new device needed more horsepower to do the share multiple USB devices trick.
Sure, some Linksys routers have this feature, and I have one of those Linksys NAS; however, it requires that I format the harddrive in some non-HFS format. It’s not exactly a Mac-friendly solution. And, it’s not exactly very fast. A wireless-N solution in a Mac-friendly format will be useful.
I wonder if the USB port on iTV works the same way. I find the 40 GB hard drive lacking. I’d love to plug a 250 GB external drive in for all my movies and music.
“Linksys routers have had this for a long time. Way to “lead”, Apple”
Stop eating lemons ‘Bryan” if that really IS your name, and realize that while Apple doesnt always do everything or even most things first, they are usually the first ones to do it right and make it easy.
This appears to be the case here as well.
“Why not FIREWIRE???!!!”
Because it is over the network…it wouldn’t make a difference.
Well as someone who has several firewire external hard drives, it would make a difference to me. Now I have to shell out for a USB case? It drives me crazy that Apple isn’t even supporting their own technology. Would it have been so difficult to include both USB and firewire?
I got all excited about this and then it occurred to me that my current AEBS has several ethernet ports open since I’m using the wireless.
Turns out that there are several ethernet HDD’s that should be attachable to the AEBS, beginning around $108 for 250 GB. See:
<a>http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=ethernet+disk+-cable+-enclosure&btnG=Search</a>
I haven’t tried it yet, but I’ll be purchasing one this afternoon to bring home and try out if I can find one at the local Office Depot. If it works I’ll let you know. If not I’ll let you know… and I’ll be returning it. (Which is why i’m buying it close to home and not over the internet.)
(Oops. Guess it’s been a while since I played directly with tags.)
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=ethernet+disk+-cable+-enclosure&btnG=Search
Blessings…
Sucks that if you order now, You won’t get your shipment until march. I ordered but canceled after I saw those estimates. I’d rather wait and buy later.
But this is a winner though, much more minimalist looking and fits under my Mini Stack External drive.
But why haven’t they put a firewire or multiple USB ports? Then you would have to put a unatractive USB hub if you want more things connected.
I wonder though, It would be awsome If I connect the Ministack there and have all your devises working wirelessly.
I saw a Lacie drive that had Network storage via an Ehternet port, but alas after purchasing it realised you could only use it when it was formatted as a FAT32 drive. Of course, backing up your Home Folder was impossible because of FAT32’s lack of support for massive filenames, so it was, effectively , useless to me.
THIS, however, is an amazing piece of news (for me anyway), because now I can have my AEBS, printer and tons of extra storage drives tucked away in the cupboard under the stairs, accessing it all via AirPort using my MacBook Pro. My minialist home will be more minimal than before, and my girlfriend will definitly appreciate the lack of wires all around my desk (she’s a fussy woman, but I love her to bits).
Sweet. I love it when Apple turn up to the party. It always done right.