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AirPort Extreme debuts "AirPort Disk"

Swad

By Swad

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New to the revamped AirPort Extreme is a cool new disk sharing feature called, surprisingly enough, "AirPort Disk." The word on the street (or, more accurately, Apple's website) is that it makes sharing an external hard drive as easy as (Apple?) pie.

New to AirPort Extreme, AirPort Disk turns almost any external USB hard drive into a shared drive. Simply connect the drive to the USB port on the back of your AirPort Extreme and — voila — all the documents, videos, photos, and other files on the drive instantly become available to anyone on the secure network, Mac and PC alike. It’s perfect for backups, collaborative projects, and more.

 

A simple-to-use AirPort Disk Utility gives you more setup options. You could set the disk to become available whenever you connect to the network. You could set up password-protected accounts for everybody on the network, or allow read-only access to certain files and folders. The choice is yours.

What a handy concept. As more computer users move their computers onto home networks, user-friendly features such as this will be a welcomed blessing. As someone who has spent hours cursing Microsoft for a poorly implemented sharing system in XP, I can appreciate the plug-and-play simplicity of AirPort Disk. It even works with Apple TV.

 

I'm not sure if Apple is the first company to implement such a feature, but I'm certainly glad they did.

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sadiekiller

OOOooo I like! My dad ordered one already, too bad I have to wait to mess with it. I'm also excited to see the drivers for opening up the new wireless cards. I have yet to use any draft n tech, but i hear its really fast. I wonder though if you have to have the router in order to use hte capabilities in the new macs? I thought I had heard somewhere that you have to buy the router to unlock the cards with the included cd. oh well, withing days of the first shipments people will have that available for download. I'm also happy they decided to include more than one Lan port this time.

Edited by sadiekiller
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other

Looks like a pretty sweet device :wacko:

I've got the old marshmallow shaped one and I might upgrade to this since its got a wider range of reception!

 

Shame they didn't advertise this in the keynote :)

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vitamin-c

Apple where definetly not the first ones to implant this feature, but its a sweet feature never the less :wacko:

I like it, combined with a usb-hub, a printer, and a slug (runnig OpenSlug), i have evverything i need on the home serversystem front :)

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John the Geek

Wow, this helps my decision.

 

My "stay-puffed marshmallow base station" is starting to lock up quite a bit, so I may just take the plunge and buy the "AirSkillet" to replace it...

 

=)

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Swad
Wow, this helps my decision.

 

My "stay-puffed marshmallow base station" is starting to lock up quite a bit, so I may just take the plunge and buy the "AirSkillet" to replace it...

 

=)

I hear they're making a SkilletBook Pro that would go right along with the motif. :(

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U.C.

Umm, wireless routers with USB ports are old. Infact my *modded* Netgear WGT634U runs OpenWRT has one USB 2.0 port, and downloads torrents directly into harddisk.

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jgrimes80
Too bad it doesn't support Gigabit Ethernet ... otherwise it would be really good :)

 

What are you going to do with gigabit ethernet? 100Mbps is probably more along the lines of "reality" transfer rates anyways because I doubt you'll ever see a steady 300Mbps...

 

1000Mbps ethernet for a "300Mbps" wireless seems to be overkill...

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sys0p

I was refereeing to the "USB 2-Network Drive" capability - which can be easily saturated with 100MBit only ...

or think what happens if you use the device as a switch to bind your macs into your home network (not via Wifi) - you would waste the GigaEthernet capability that most Macs have. And personally I love copying files from the Server to a client with 30MB/s :P

Edited by sys0p
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jgrimes80

I'm not saying that you can't saturate a 100Mbps w/ a NAS drive, I'm simply throwing out that a 802.11(n) might not be able to sustain those speeds to make a worthy difference ...

 

I see you're point, but those are what I call "special" circumstances that won't be of use to a "typical" user unlike yourself. You have to remember, Apple is only selling ONE wireless router (well two..) both of which cater to very broad markets. My guess is those broad markets will plug a desktop in one LAN port and a printer in the USB and call it a day's work...

 

For special needs, typically, you'd expect to buy special products... this isn't Apple's niche market so I don't expect them to be the top dog. Personally, I'm still content w/ my Airport (Snow) which by the way never transfers faster than 1.5Mbps or so and it's settings are maxed out...

 

For me, I figure if I have a large enough file to transfer, I can make a hard connection no problem...

 

The next rev of wireless though... should/could start stealing from those wired switches. I'd say the future should be interesting.

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Numberzz
Looks like a pretty sweet device ;)

I've got the old marshmallow shaped one and I might upgrade to this since its got a wider range of reception!

 

Shame they didn't advertise this in the keynote :P

All of you should have read the fine print.

Based on a comparison with Apple’s 802.11g products. Comparison assumes AirPort Extreme network with 802.11n-enabled computer. Speed and range will be less if an 802.11a/b/g product joins the network. Accessing the wireless network requires an AirPort- or AirPort Extreme-enabled computer or other Wi-Fi Certified 802.11a/b/g-enabled computer. Actual performance will vary based on range, connection rate, site conditions, size of network, and other factors. Range will vary with site conditions.

So with a non 802.11n wireless card, you will get worse reception.

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John the Geek

Worse than what? Sounds like if a G client joins they all step down to G speed. So the N clients would suffer, but the G runs as usual.

 

I don't have any B clients or N... so it's fine for me.

 

=)

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Willwander

Now if Apple TV also had the ability to host NAS disks then it would be worth buying. Do you think that the USB port on an apple TV (for diagnostic according to the spec) will/could be used for this?

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