With today’s Time Machine and AirPort Updates v1.0, Apple Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard’s Time Machine now supports USB hard drives attached to Apple Airport Extreme Base Stations, MacDailyNews can confirm.
In other words, an Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS) with an attached USB hard drive can now function with Time Machine and perform wireless backups just like Apple’s Time Capsule.
After applying the Time Machine and AirPort Updates v1.0 and restarting, users should launch Airport Utility (Applications>Utilities>Airport Utility). This will prompt the user to apply the 7.3.1 Firmware Update for their Airport Extreme Base Station.
After doing so, users with Airport Extreme Base Stations with attached USB hard drives will have Time Machine functionality (use System Preferences>Time Machine to set up your desired drive; you may have to Connect to the drive via the Finder in order to see it in TIme Machine Preferences).
At this time, it is unclear if Apple officially supports using a hard drive connected to the AEBS USB port for Time Machine (but their latest software sure seems to).
MacDailyNews Note: MacFixIt confirms here.
MikeMilzz…
You can’t be serious about improving USB performance. USB is the worst for file backups. Why didn’t Apple include FireWire (Time Capsule and MacBook Air) is beyond me.
Anyway, it’s good that they finally activated this feature in the AirPort Extreme!
Now I can upgrade my old TiBook to Leopard and use an old external drive for Time Machine backups. Yeah, it’ll be slow as hell, but we only use it as a ‘floating’ Mac around the house. Since he optical drive is dead, it’ll be like a fat MB Air.
@ El Guapo
I have the same one you do and it will not work. The AEBS we have will only update to 5.7 and not beyond. Although they are called “Extreme”, our base stations do not have whatever is necessary, and apparently included with the new “Extreme” base stations (the square ones) that allows for this update to be successful and functional. Time to upgrade to Time Capsule….
Oh, and can I have your watch when you are dead?
@ Norrin Radd & El Guapo
I have an “Extremer” AEBS, which is square, but is not “Extremest”, meaning it has no internal drive. I think mine will work, because it has a USB port, which means it has a serial bus, which, I believe, yours do not.
I think.
@ MikeMilzz
I love your bass line on “Old Man Kensey”
I just got back from the Apple Store with a new Time Capsule, having given up on the hope that I’d be able to use my AEBS for Time Machine. I open up MacDaily and see THIS story! WTF!
I even said to the MacGenius that I wish I could use my existing AEBS instead of buying a new device. He just shook his head in commiseration. Jeez, Apple, how about a little “heads up”?
my aebs is still on 5.7
are there different types of base stations ??
it’s the white ufo shaped one , i bought it in 2002-3 ish
This only works with the squarish Airport Extreme (the N one).
You have to update your OS with the new fix and also update the airport base station firmware to 7.3.1 (done from in the base station config ap)
Then mount the disk and launch time machine config (working fine on my macbook air right now)
Reverse the hack if you’ve implemented it by substituting a zero for the one at the end and reinstall the update and restart as required. The fix detailed above worked for me; if you haven’t already, update the base station, then plug your drive via USB directly to your computer (ie not FireWire). Repair disk permissions and move your drive over to the base station and connect to it in Finder. For me, Time Machine recognised it immediately and without having to go into System Preferences.
At long last!
I’d imagine there’s likely to be a speed difference between a Time Machine and AEBS+USB. Maybe not with a lot of wireless networks, but wired will probably show that the USB connection is slowing things down.
I will repeat what Apple told me last night – that they do NOT support this! You may see it work, but they will not pull your chestnuts outta the fire if it fails…
Great! Now fix iMovie’08 DV video quality problem and I’ll be a very satisfied customer
Is there a hack for this to work w/Airport Express??
@ ChrissyOne
Actually, mine (& El Guapo’s) UFO Extreme’s DO have a USB port – works great for wireless printing – but doesn’t work at all for this (too bad – oh well – time for Time Capsule!).
Time Machine backups are working great for me now. With regards to the Auto-Mounting of the drive… once you have mounted it the first time and then chosen it as the backup drive Time Machine will automatically mount it and back up every hour. If you are using a laptop it will back up every hour as long as your Mac is plugged in. You will NOT be able to backup without plugging your Mac in because your backup could get corrupted if a backup job doesn’t complete because of losing power.
BiZarRo BaLlmEr sez: “Anyone know how to make an Epson stylus C84 printer work with AEBS? The air port sees it but epson software does not. I call Epson is at fault here. Updates all drivers.”
The current Epson drivers do not support Bonjour. Yeah, you will see “Epson Stylus C84 Bonjour” (or whatever model of Epson you have) listed in Printer Setup Utility Printer Browser / Default Browser window. But this is BOGUS. Try it if you like, but printing will throw a communication error. This is indeed Epson’s fault, and I consider it inexcusable considering that the Rendezvous/Bonjour standard is many years old and is free Open Source code from Apple.
However, there is a very good solution. Install the latest STABLE version of Gimp-Print which is currently 5.0.2.
*** (Do NOT NOT NOT install any version of the 5.1.x series as it is currently for developer TESTING ONLY and will mess up your Mac’s printing ability)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gimp-print/
Once it is installed here is what to do. (Note that there are Gimp-Print drivers for most other Epson printers as well).
1) Be sure your Epson is ON and connected via USB to your AirPort Extreme / Time Capsule Base Station.
2) In Printer Setup Utility hit the ‘Add’ icon.
3) In the Printer Browser window click the ‘Default Browser’ icon.
4) Click on the listed Printer Name of your Epson printer to highlight it.
5) In the lower box you should see the ‘Name:’ of your printer and the ‘Location:’ name of your Base Station. You need to CHANGE the ‘Print Using:’ driver selection in its popup menu. Open the popup menu, move your cursor down to ‘EPSON’ in the Gimp-Printer driver list.
6) A new ‘Model’ list will open up in the Print Browser window. Scroll down to the driver for your printer and click on it to highlight it. (In our example here, the driver name is something like ‘Epson Stylus C84 – CUPS+Gutenprint v5.0.x’. Note that ‘Gimp-Print’ is equivalent to ‘Gutenprint’ for the time being until the developers sort out the name confusion).
7) With your printer driver selected, click the ‘Add’ button on the bottom right of the Printer Browser window. You are now ready to go.
8) When you Print be sure you select the Epson Gutenprint driver. Do NOT select the ‘Bonjour Printer’ listing for your Epson printer. If you happen to have Epson’s version of its driver setup up for printing, it will be selected (versus Gutenprint) and will fail.
Be sure to play around in the Epson Gutenprint interface before you print. In particular check out the multitude of settings under the ‘Printer Features’ popup menu item in the printing interface. For the Epson Stylus C84 there are 14 (!) different ‘Feature Sets’. It is likely the only ones you will need are “Set 1” and “Printer Features Common”. The other settings are for professionals. It is also useful to go into the ‘Scheduler’ popup menu item to speed up your printer output by selecting ‘Urgent’. Note that as usual you can SAVE all your printer selections for your convenience in the future. For example, I have a setup for ‘Epson C84 Urgent Economy Black’ for rough test prints.
:-Derek
FYI, I alerted MacDailynews of the update.