On 18/04/2009 20:43, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Apr 2009 06:54:32 +0100, LR<lrme@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>> Jeff Liebermann wrote:
>>> On Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:18:59 +0100, LR<lrme@privacy.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Have you tried it with an external USB Hard Drive yet?
>>> Yep. Works fine with my Western Dismal 320GB USB drive:
>>> <http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=391>
>>> which is FAT32 formatted. However, a SimpleTech 330GB USB drive
>>> didn't work because of NTFS formatting. Apple knows about the issue.
>>> Apparently, it's intentional:
>>> <http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/06/wd-pumps-out-my-passport-for-mac-my-book-mac-edition/>
>>> where vendors are expected to deliver PC only and Mac only drives.
>>>
>>> I've been told that it's not terribly difficult to reformat external
>>> USB drives to FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, EFS, or whatever is deemed useful.
>>>
>>> I did have a problem with a Seagate Free Agent | Go drive:
>>> <http://freeagent.seagate.com/en-us/hard-drive/Free-Agent.html>
>>> The drive comes with two USB cables. One cable has two USB plugs in
>>> order to get more power to run the drive. That's not a problem with
>>> the 250GB version, but the 500GB version would sometimes fail to start
>>> if powered from only one USB plug. The problem is that the Airport
>>> Extreme only has one USB jack on the rear panel.
>
>> Thanks. That means we would have to continue using our nas drives for
>> our mixed linux windows network and just use our usb drive as a portable
>> drive.
>
> A bit more...
>
> I had kinda hoped that the Airport Extreme base station would support
> 802.11e (WMM or Wi-Fi MultiMedia) but doesn't. I've been playing with
> it on a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 router running DD-WRT v24 SP1 at a crowded
> hot spot. WMM divides apps by background, best effort, video, and
> voice. I have SIP and Skype setup for the highest voice priority (and
> file sharing set for background). It seems to work well for what
> seems to be a deluge of Ipod Touch PDA's running Skype.
>
> Note that WMM does not mean that priority packets get sent before
> non-priority packets. It simply means that the backoff time, and
> other delaying mechanisms are shorter for priority packets and that
> they have a better probability of being sent first.
>
> I forgot to mention that the Seagate Free Agent Go drive didn't work
> with the Airport Extreme even after I connected the 2nd USB connector
> to a 5V USB power supply. I thought I was doing something wrong, but
> later determined that it didn't work because it was formatted for
> NTFS.
>
> FAT32 versus NTFS is apparently a never ending debate. In general,
> NTFS is a much better filesystem for anyting over 8GB. FAT32 uses
> very large cluster sizes, which allegedly wastes considerable
> diskspace. If you have a large number of files, the large cluster
> size will cause considerable waste. In addition, the OS had to read
> the empty space, which slows things down. Such wasted space is NOT an
> issue when dealing with big files, such as my usual backup images.
> These are typically split into 2GB chunks and are 6 to 40GB per
> machine. These fill up the drive quickly, but there's little waste
> because there are only a few files.
>
> I've also been playing with NAS drives. My favorite (this week) is a
> Buffalo Linkstation Live LS-CH500L. About $200. Lots of goodies and
> features I'll probably never use, but are fun to play with:
> <http://www.buffalotech.com/products/network-storage/linkstation/linkstation-live-ls-chl/>
> Gigabit ethernet, SATA, and a big cache are a must. Be sure to
> upgrade the firmware to the latest. I don't see any reason to attach
> the storage to wireless router. It's handy, but for performance (i.e.
> massive backups), the ethernet to USB2 transition constitutes a 50%
> slow down.
>
>
We have been using a couple of freecom 500GB drives
<http://www.freecom.com/ecproduct_detail.asp?ID=3402&CatID=&sCatID=>
which we use as storage for up to six people rather than system backups
and I was hoping I could either use one of these on the USB port or use
our portable USB drive as I don't wish to add a switch to the network,
having only 3 ethernet ports is annoying. We have recently been given a
320GB USB drive which now contains backup's for the windows machines
<http://www.goclickfree.com/products_portablebackup.php>
but I haven't had a good play with it yet.