05-16-2010, 04:09 PM

i have my imac, and it's great. the only thing bothering me now is that i am out of USB ports in the back of it. i have a printer plugged into it, a 250g hd, and a 1tb hd. i constantly have to go back there and unplug the cord for my iphone, my camera and my flash drive for school. it gets annoying. i also have my ethernet cord running across the floor in my bedroom. i think i am understanding this airport thing correctly, but if someone could confirm i would appreciate it. this is what i'd like to do:

-purchase an Airport extreme to put in my bedroom. (yes there is a wireless N router in the house as well as an extender already. signal isn't 100% in my room).
-plug in my external HD's and printer to the Airport so i can access them wirelessly from across the room.

this will not only free up all the usb ports in the back of my imac, it should really clean up my desk. no more printer taking up space, no more hard drive wires getting in the way.

another bonus im thinking is that i will pick up a macbook before school in the fall. this way i will be able to access photos, music, etc from my external hard drives without ever having to plug them in.

if i am completely missing the point here, can someone please set me straight? if this is possible, i'll head out to the apple store tomorrow and pick one up. thanks in advance!

05-16-2010, 04:17 PM

durrr, i'm out in space today. those are all ethernet ports, not USB. uugh, this isn't going to work like i wish it would.


there has to be something out there that can do what i'm looking for??

EDIT. i guess it's time to do some reading... assuming i can access a printer with the airport express, maybe i could go that route?


use a 4 point USB hub for my extra junk. tuck it all away neatly on a shelf about 8 feet from my imac. something like this:

05-16-2010, 04:44 PM

it's amazing what a bit of digging will yield. i had a late night and i am paying for it today. clearly my head isn't working correctly today.


so, i need an extreme base station with a 4 port USB hub. that should do the trick, correct?

05-17-2010, 12:13 AM

Have your HD/s got Firewire - use them instead of USB it will be quicker if they are on FW800 or just a little faster on FW400. That will free up some USB ports.

05-17-2010, 10:05 AM

neither are, and it would only free up one spot. thanks though.

05-17-2010, 11:57 AM

Looks like Apple wants you to use a powered USB hub.
Uses for the USB port of Time Capsule, AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express
When I had multiple hard drives plugged into my time capsule - they were self powered and I had a non-powered USB hub and it seemed to work but I remember some flakiness and this might be the cause. Anyway I dropped to 1 large usb self powered hard drive and all is well.

Also I did a little digging - it seems if you have a multi-function printer/scanner/fax you cannot use the scanner capabilities from what I've read. If someone has gotten it to work it would be nice to know.

05-17-2010, 05:39 PM

good stuff. both my HD's are powered, as is the belkin 7 port usb hub i got today.


so far so good. now i need to organize the wires so the don't look so crappy and get this **** acer laptop with vista to recognize my printer.

05-17-2010, 05:59 PM

Dude - the 80's called - They want their TV/VCR combo back

05-17-2010, 06:36 PM

lol. it's the only tv i've ever had. it still works, and i dont care much about tv stuff. lol.