[Nubben]

Hi,

I recently purchased the new Airport Extreme. I have set up everything in my lounge having attached an Iomega mini max HDD to the Airport Extreme. The drive shows up fine in the Finder. Can drag and drop files without any problems.

Now, the idea is that I will store my music library on the external HD; accessing it wirelessly. Instead of plugging in the iPod to my MBP Core Duo (no draft-n), which would mean that the songs would have to travel back to the MBP before being synced to the iPod, I tried to hook up the iPod dock directly to the mini max HD which doubles as a USB hub as well.

Unfortunately the iPod does not mount when I have plugged it in to the mini max HD. The iPod mounts fine if I connect it to the MBP, however now I get intermittent error messages (error -48) which I have not seen before. The iPod obviously takes a long time to sync this way. Almost at the speed of USB 1.0....

If I cannot solve this I will return the base station so would appreciate any thoughts and solutions you might think of. Can I tinker with the Airport Utility settings?

Thanks!

Nubben

[toddtmw]

Well hard drive speed is slower than it should be. You will see faster speeds if you plug into one of the Ethernet ports on the Airport rather than using wireless networking. (But that kind of defeats the purpose, might as well plug the drive into your USB port...)

I'm hoping Apple will "fix" the speed issue with airport disk access, but I wouldn't expect much if you aren't using "N" wireless. Even though G is rated at 54 mbps, I've never even come close to getting that. I don't think I ever saw speeds above 8 or 9 mbps. (That's megabits). Even when I plug into my Airport, the Airdisk speeds aren't much better than 40 mbps. (That's the best I've seen, it is typically worse than that.)

So, bottom line for what you are trying to do, you would be much better off just hooking the hard drive to your Mac when you want to update your iPod.

I guess you could plug the hard drive into the Airport to listen to music on your laptop and then plug it into the USB port when you want to sync your iPod. iTunes might even handle it correctly since I'm thinking both drives would mount at the same point on your Mac's file system. (Just make sure to close iTunes and unmount the drive before switching them.)

-Todd

[Nubben]

Thanks Todd.

But my main questions is why there is a problem mounting the iPod through the attached HD when the HD is also a USB hub?

I don't get that.

Nubben

[krove]

The way that iTunes accesses the music on an iPod is not through normal protocols. So, just because the iPod can act as a hard drive does not mean that iTunes can see it as a real iPod if it is mounted remotely. The iPod has to be connected to the computer for iTunes to see it and sync to it.

[krx]

I may not fully understand your configuration, but why couldn't you just connect the iPod directly to the base, along w/the HD (not through the HD)? Then you could communicate directly w/both and each w/the other.

[Nubben]

Krx,

What do you mean "directly to the base... (not through the HD)"? The iPod would connect through USB and since the HD is using the USB port on the base station there are no more ports to use. Previously I had set up the Iomega drive as an external drive (accessed by USB cable) and hooked up the iPod through a USB port on the Iomega drive (it's a USB hub). The only difference here would be that I am accessing the Iomega drive wirelessly and not by cable - and that's what I cannot get my head around - what's the difference?

Krove,

Since I had the iPod mounted through the Iomega drive previously by using a USB cable I don't udnerstand why that would be different from accesisng it remotely since the Iomega drive is also acting as a USB hub. Isn't that what APple sis aying on their website - hook up severla other printers, HD's etc through a USB hub?

Many thanks for all your input so far guys.

Cheers.

Nubben

[krx]

Sorry, I thought maybe the mini max had Ethernet capability. The idea was that the two (mini max and iPod) might communicate better if mounted separately, instead of one being peripheral to the other. You could still possible achieve this with a USB hub or splitter...

In any case, there are other examples of devices (e.g., all-in-ones) that have full functionality on wired connections but lose functionality on wireless connections. Apparently there are custom drivers that restore some of the lost functioning but I have no idea if such exist for the mini max. You might call iOmega and see what they say before scrapping the new base station - just a thought.

[Nubben]

Thanks krx.

It looks like I have to get a separate USB hub then even though the Iomega drive also acts as a USB hub... :-(
Which USB hub should I go for? I have read about a nice-looking Belkin which would fit nicely under the Iomega drive and the AEBS. That one from what I understand is not separately powered. Does that make a difference? What would be the difference between getting a powered and a non-powered USB hub? Speed?

I had also thought I would separately hook up a FireWire cable to the Iomega drive but then the USB hub won't work - iPod can only sync of course using USB...

[toddtmw]

Before you buy a hub, have you tried just hooking the iPod directly to the Airport. You won't be able to have the Iomega connected at the same time, but you should try it to make sure that is what you want. It sounds like you want to be able to sync your iPod by hooking it to the Airport. I do not think that will work.

The Airport allows disk sharing, but it is not a USB to Ethernet converter. Syncing the iPod requires USB and requires more than just disk access.

I haven't tried hooking an iPod to my Airport, but I'm fairly certain, it's not going to do what you want. I just think maybe you should try it before you buy a hub.

If you plug it in and iTunes launches and sees your iPod, I'd be very surprised. If that works, then you can buy a USB hub.

-Todd

[Nubben]

Thanks toddtmw.

When you say: If you plug it in and iTunes launches and sees your iPod, I'd be very surprised. If that works, then you can buy a USB hub.
Do you mean plugging the iPod in to the AEBS? That would mean I would have to unplug the drive and insert the iPod there. That would be too cumbersome. "If that works, then you can buy a USB hub" - don't you mean the other way around? If it doesn't work?

Shouldn't I be able to do just what Apple says - get a hub and plug in the HD and other devices such as an iPod to the hub and everything would be cool?

Thanks.

Nubben

[toddtmw]

An iPod does two things. It acts as a hard drive and it plays music. In order to get it to play music, you have to sync it via iTunes. Syncing requires a USB connection. The Airport shares hard drives via a network, but does not bridge USB and a network.

In other words, plugging an iPod into the new Airport is kind of like plugging it into another computer.

So, for example, suppose you had two Macs. Mac A had your music on it and Mac B had your iPod connected to it. If the two macs were connected to the same network, you could set everything up so you could mount the hard drive of your iPod from Mac A, but iTunes on Mac A would not be able to sync to that iPod.

I know you want to have them both connected at the same time, and in order to do that you need a hub. You are speculating that the reason the iPod isn't working is because the Iomega hub isn't working correctly. But it COULD be that the iPod just doesn't work the way you want it to in this situation. So, just to make sure, I was thinking that if you plugged your iPod directly into the Airport to see what it does, you can determine if it even makes sense. This would just be for testing, a one-time thing to see how it works.

-Todd

[Nubben]

Ok thanks. Will try that.

Nubben

[krove]

As I stated above, the iPod's default configuration is to NOT act as a hard drive (as in, it does not appear on the Desktop) and ONLY synchronize with iTunes via some other protocol over a USB bus. (This is why when you browse the iPod hard drive in the Finder, YOU DON'T SEE THE MUSIC. It is hidden in some other layer on the USB/FW connection.) The new AE does not share this protocol to my knowledge.

The new Apple TV does act like an iPod, seen by your computer as an iPod-like source that can be synced over a wireless network. The HD-sharing feature of AE does not extend this iTunes synchronization because pure sharing of the HD is not enough because the hard drive sharing protocol does not share the hidden iPod database that would allow iTunes to even know that this hard drive is an iPod. (Again, try sharing your iPod connected to your computer with another computer, and iTunes on the other computer will not recognize the network-mounted iPod.)

Although I do not have an AE or know with 100% certainty, I can safely say that the AE does not support this feature.

[laroche02]

I just ran across this thread. I can confirm that this afternoon I was able to sync an iPod mini connected to the new AEBS, through a USB hub, with a 802.11n iMac. However, I haven't been able to repeat the result.

- I have my new ABS sitting atop a hard-drive enclosure/ USB hub shaped like a Mac mini. It fits perfectly under the new AEBS.
- I have my iTunes library stored on that drive. I haven't tried to sync my whole library with an ipod (connected to the iMac) yet, but I haven't noticed significant speed problems syncing only a few albums at a time.
- I tried plugging in my video ipod and my 2g nano early on, but with no luck. I figured that it would only be a new place to charge my ipods. I assumed that I could reformat the ipod as a regular USB disk, but had no desire to try.
- Today I plugged my wife's old green mini into the AEBS to charge. Shortly afterward i awoke my iMac from sleep; it asked for the password to connect to my airport disk.
- Un expectedly, my wife's ipod showed up on my desktop and in iTunes. It auto-synced a few podcasts. I was too excited to pay attention to the speed.
- I have since ejected the mini, and tried to use my other ipods. No luck. Even the mini won't show up anymore.
- the Airport utility seems to recognize when an iPod is hooked up to the AEBS via the hub, but iTunes just wont recognize it.

I love to hear of someone else getting the same result.

[greentroop]

I was wondering how to listen to my iTunes library over the AEB and still sync my ipod when I came across a cool shareware program called Libra. http://homepage.mac.com/sroy/libra/. This program allowed me to transfer my iTunes library to a Maxtor 160 GB drive in a USB 2 enclosure attatched to my AEB. I transferred the iTunes library from my G4 dual 533 running Max OS 10.4.9 to the Maxtor drive attatched to the AEB. iTunes now plays fine over my 100 base t network.
I then installed Libra on my Macbook Pro intel core2 duo 233GHz. I have a small local iTunes library on my Macbook and my complete library on the Maxtor 160 GB drive. When I want to listen to my complete library, I use Libra to make the Airport library active and then stream music using the enabled 802.11n Airport Extreme card which on the Macbook. When I am on the road and want to listen to one of the 500 songs on my local library I use Libra to switch to my local library. This works great with the exception of adding songs to a library. If I have my main library library active on the Macbook and then add a song, I need to also add that song manually to the library on the G4 533.