I just found out recently that Time Machine (Apple’s backup utility) can again be used on an external drive plugged to an AirPort Extreme Base Station (Apple’s wireless router). This feature was lost when Apple came out with Time Capsule, but apparently came back in a software update in March 2008. Can’t believe I was unaware for over a year.
I’d give instructions on how to set this up, but there’s really not much to say. I mean you just plug in the external HDD via USB to the AirPort Extreme and select it as your Time Machine drive in the Time Machine preferences. There, I gave instructions.
Read more at other sites: arstechnica.com, macworld.com.
Macworld.com did a great job reporting this:
In the aftermath of Wednesday’s release of updates to Apple’s AirPort Extreme wireless base stations and Time Machine on Wednesday…
Wednesday’s release of updates happened on Wednesday? Really??
Update (July 22): Way too slow. Going back to FireWire.
can’t you plug in to your airport via rj45?
rj-wha? Oh, ethernet… I guess so, if you mean for the initial backup, cuz the point was to backup wirelessly. But someone just told me there’s a problem with the latest Apple Extreme firmware and that was causing the backup to cut off in the middle or something. Anyway haven’t looked into it since I’m using FireWire again.