Wireless "air" itunes library

So I thought I was smart with computers, but this one I really don't have the answers to and I've looked for it. If there is already a thread about this, please let me know.

My MBP is about out of hard drive space and it is mostly due to all the music I have on it. My question is, can I use my Airport Extreme Base Station Model A1143 USB port to connect a 2.0 USB external hard drive to and access it wirelessly from my MBP? Or is this port something that I can only use things like printers for? I read on the box that the new Airport Extreme Base Station can have an external hard drive plugged into the USB port, but my model is a little older. If this is not possible then I guess I will have to fork over the cash for an ethernet external hard drive.

Ok so here is the second part of my question. Whether I use an external hard drive wirelessly vie ethernet or USB (if I can) am I able to move all of my music to the external hard drive and still be able to access it from iTunes on my MBP and have it play like it normally would? I am told that you can create and "air" library from iTunes, but that is all about the information I know about it.

Ok that's all, I hope I can get some help on here.

Hopefully I have explained it all well enough to get the answers I am looking for, if not let me know where I've messed up!

Thanks in advance!

orcas1013 said:

My MBP is about out of hard drive space and it is mostly due to all the music I have on it. My question is, can I use my Airport Extreme Base Station Model A1143 USB port to connect a 2.0 USB external hard drive to and access it wirelessly from my MBP? Or is this port something that I can only use things like printers for? I read on the box that the new Airport Extreme Base Station can have an external hard drive plugged into the USB port, but my model is a little older. If this is not possible then I guess I will have to fork over the cash for an ethernet external hard drive.

Click to expand...

Yes you can, the drive needs to be formatted in Mac OS Extended Journaled. Then connect it via the USB port on the back, then go into your Airport Utility, the do this, set password etc.



Depending on your settings in itunes if you put all your music on this drive like I have you drag your entire folder/list of music on that drive to itunes (make sure the copy to itunes is disabled) and it will add them to your library via a network drive. Now if your drive is not there then you'll get !! beside the songs.

Note: If your drive is formatted in Fat32, or NTFS or anything else other then the mac os journaled it won't show up
under the disks tab.

Thanks! That is exactly what I wanted to know! Will this still work for my older version of Airport Extreme? And can a printer and the hard drive be connected to the same USB port if I have a slitter since there is only one port?

Yes it should. Mines 2-3 years old, its not the round one but as long as the option for hard drive is there in your airport settings then YES!, and As long as the USB Hub is powered then Yes! I've tried with an unpowered USB hub and you get alot of harddrive errors and copy errors and whatnot.

I have found two hard drives that I am thinking about buying. This one says it is formatted for a mac:

Western Digital WDBAAG0010HCH-NESN 1TB My Book Mac External Hard Drive in Hard Drives at JR.com

and this one says it is formatted for a mac but says it is HFS+ Journaled:

Newegg.com - Western Digital My Book Studio 750GB 3.5" USB 2.0 / IEEE 1394a / IEEE 1394b / eSATA External Hard Drive Model WDH1Q7500N

Which one should I be getting. And what does Journaled mean and why do I need it?

It doesn't matter which one you get. It may say already formatted for mac or pc but when you plug it into your mac you can just use spotlight , type in disk utility. click the drive, then format use the dropdown box select Journaled mac format and good to go

My dads pc wouldnt let him format a ps3 harddrive so i removed it from the ps3 used a cable and plugged it into my mac. used disk utility and formatted it for mac to show him it could be done then formatted it as Fat32 and gave it back to him lol.

I have an AEBS also with a external harddrive installed, I used a Iomega Minimax, maybe not the fastest around... but hey it goed nice with the airport.
However, the next problem you'll face, is the fact that external discs don't auto-mount to your mac, unless its registered as a time machine drive.... so that's no good... BUT! the good news is this:
I've resently posted a thread providing a solution for the auto-mounting problem. and there are lot's of other posts about letting iTunes think youre library is somewhere else.

auto-mount thread:
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/airport-networking-wireless-technology/169422-auto-mount-airport-disks-solved-os-10-6-a.html

Hope this helps for you

Thanks guys for all the continuing help! :0) If my mac will allow me to journaled format it, can't I just get any old external hard drive and format it? Does it have to say for mac?

Sure you can get an old external drive, just make sure its connected by USB (best is USB 2.0)
and you can first link it up to your mac and format it to Mac OS Journaled for better results.