I'm trying to use a LaCie 2TB drive as an AirPort drive, for backup on a home network. We have one mac and two PC laptops.
My plan is to create a Mac partition and a Windows partition. However, Disk Utility won't let me set the windows partition to Windows format; there's no option in the menu for it in the partition tab. Am I doing something wrong?
Alternatively, is there a way to partition the drive with one partition that all three machines can see? We have a Mac G5 with 10.4 and two laptops with Windows 7.
Thanks!
Asked by neilfein on June 13, 2010. Last Edited on June 13, 2010.
If you are connecting to the drive over the network, then the format should not matter - The system (AirPort) to which the drive is connected simply needs to be able to read it, for which I would format it as one large HFS+ partition. From there the files are encapsulated to the machines via various networking protocols, which both the windows and mac machines can use.
Answered by Darth Android on June 13, 2010.
I've formatted the disk with one big Mac partition, and both of the Windows PCs and Mac can see and write to it. The Mac is currently doing a whole-disk backup using Synk Standard. (It's a first backup and has been going for over a day and a half, but seems to be making progress.)
Darth, thanks again for the heads-up about security. I've researched this further, and the questions to ask in this case seem to be [1] is the disk password-protected (it is), and [2] Is the AirPort using WEP or WPA (It's using WPA/WPA 2 "Personal"). When this backup is complete, I'll try unchecking "Share disks over WAN" and see if everything still works.
Answered by neilfein on June 15, 2010.
Use Dropbox, it'll propagate your files across all of the computers (no matter what OS) and give you an online backup in case disaster strikes (like a fire).
Answered by Evan Plaice on June 15, 2010.
Content from Superuser of Stack Exchange. Original article at Superuser.
Thanks. I'm having trouble configuring things so I can see the drive on my Win7 netbook. Is there an AirPort Extreme for idiots document somewhere on the web? I can't believe I'm the only one to have these questions! - neilfein on June 13, 2010
I think I may have found the problem. I had to enable "Share disks over WAN" and disable "Share disks over internet using Bonjour", and I was able to log into the drive from the netbook. Thanks again. - neilfein on June 13, 2010
@neilfein Careful, if there's not a router or something between your Airport Extreme and the internet (your modem or whatever), then Sharing over WAN could expose the disk to the entire internet. - Darth Android on June 13, 2010
I thought the Air Port had a firewall that disallowed this? - neilfein on June 14, 2010
In router terms, the firewall sits between the WAN and the LAN/Wifi. Sharing over WAN means you're sharing on the public side of the firewall as well as the private side. - Darth Android on June 14, 2010