Is it possible to to a Time Machine back-up to an external hard drive that’s connected directly to an Airport Extreme Base Station?
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Ayon
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Time Machine Back-up Through Airport Extreme Router
Comments: One Response to “Time Machine Back-up Through Airport Extreme Router”
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So, for the most part, no. Using a disk drive connected to an Airport Extreme router is not something that is supported by Apple. I suspect the issue is that going through wifi and then going through USB produces too many issues for a stable backup.
But a lot of people do it anyway. You can search the web and find a lot of people "getting it to work" and some people frustrated that they cannot.
Here's Apple's official word: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2038
Another thing to consider is that if you already have an external drive, then connect it directly to your Mac. That gives you much much faster backups than if you pipe the backup through the bottleneck of wifi (wifi is much slower than USB2 -- a problem that anyone using a Time Capsule has).
Of course if you are using a MacBook, remembering to connect the USB on a daily basis (or at least several times per week, depending on what you do) can be a problem.