Topic: Anyone use Airport XTreme + HDD for a media server?

[acidjack]

The Apple AirPort XTreme router has the capability to attach a hard drive to it to be shared among multiple computers.

I am thinking about getting this and attaching one of my media drives so I could use this thing as a Media Server and not have to be tied (as I currently am) with a Macbook plugged into an external HDD. 

Will this work, or is the WiFi connection too slow for such things as, say, mastering tracks, etc.?

[ashevillain]

Good question. I don't know the answer but I just got my Macbook all ready to go and I have an Airport Extreme on the way so I'll try it out and report back if noone else anwers first. Also, I guess I'll find out if this works too but I'm planning on running a USB hub out of the router in order to hook up both a printer, hard drive and possibly an M-Audio Transit.

[keytohwy]

I would think it is too slow for this.  I have a Time Capsule, which is just an Extreme with a hard drive built in.  It's fine for backups and what not, and fine for streaming stuff to Apple TV or iPhone via Airfoil, but in general, it shouldn't be considered a drive that you can edit media files from.  Word processing, etc would be fine.

Among other challenges are the temp files that an app may want to make.  All of a sudden, your audio editor is wanting to write a file in the background, to the source directory, and there goes the bandwidth.

So, to recap...great way to have un-connected backup, iTunes files, etc.  Bad idea for editing a media file from.

My $.02,
keytohwy

[acidjack]

Thanks. This is what I assumed. If anyone else has a diff experience, pls by all means let me know.

[rastasean]

If you're interested in having external hard drives in internal enclosures connected to your home network not involving a computer, check out network attached storage:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=2670&name=NAS-Enclosures&

They are nice looking but I wouldn't rely on it to be able to WIRELESSLY editing or moving large files back and forth. now if you want to carry around a network cable, you'll get supposed speeds of gigabits per second or at least high megabits.




This thing sounds really cool despite the poor review:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5023097&CatId=2670

Maybe there could be someway to install a torrent program on it and just have it setup to serve torrents to keep resources from being used on your system.