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- Thread starter HappyDude20
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You can connect a USB external drive, but the speed will be horrible. I have the sixth generation Time Capsule, which is basically the same but with an internal drive. An external USB disk only acheives write speeds of less than 20MB/sec. I don't know what your usage would be, but I find that pretty useless. See this
Time Capsule vs AEBS w/ HD
Since nobody else has stepped forward to post results, I just ran a test myself. I connected a USB drive to my new Time Capsule and these are the results. It is actually a USB 3 drive that clocks over 100MB/s when directly connected, so the bottleneck is clearly the time capsule USB interface. I...
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I still use mine as a router, it works well for that with 802.11ac wifi, but I don't use it for backups anymore. For one thing, the internal disk is really loud and even though it's in the next room, it would bother me when it started up in the middle of the night. Of course, that won't be an issue for you since the Airport Extreme doesn't have an internal drive
I've replaced the internal hard drives with newer 8TB drives that are substantially more quiet than the originals... maybe it's time for an HD upgrade?
They still work wonderfully as TimeMachine backup storage.
They still work wonderfully as TimeMachine backup storage.
Thanks. It was a nice device for its time, but very slow, not interested in tinkering with mine. I converted my 2012 quad Mini to a file and time machine server with 20tb of storage, that works very well for me.
It doesn't matter how fast your disk is, I got 17MB/sec with a USB3 disk that clocks at 170MB/sec. I think the port must only be USB 2, but it doesn't even acheive that much speed (USB 2 should be ~30MB/sec). I doubt that you can put a disk inside an airport extreme, I was talking about the time capsule (which looks the same but is different inside).
The other annoying thing about the time capsule is that the internal disk "goes to sleep" almost immediately as soon as it stops accessing. This makes it seem even slower, because the disk has to spin up each time. Don't know if that would be the same with an external disk, I never really tested that. I suppose it wouldn't be an issue with an SSD... if you want to cripple your SSD with 20MB/sec performance.
However, you can use it as a slow network drive if you attach an external disk, assuming that you have a use for such a thing. Should be able to connect to it from Macs and PC's.
The other annoying thing about the time capsule is that the internal disk "goes to sleep" almost immediately as soon as it stops accessing. This makes it seem even slower, because the disk has to spin up each time. Don't know if that would be the same with an external disk, I never really tested that. I suppose it wouldn't be an issue with an SSD... if you want to cripple your SSD with 20MB/sec performance.
However, you can use it as a slow network drive if you attach an external disk, assuming that you have a use for such a thing. Should be able to connect to it from Macs and PC's.
The flat abgn version has I believe a WD Green and the tall ac version has a WD Red.
The Green will try to spin down as much as possible, so really only recommended for backups, which is what I use that one for.
The Red is optimized to run all the time, so is much better for anytime file access. This is my file server of various files.
Both are pretty quiet, though obviously the Green stays spun down most of the time, so it wins on quiet.
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The internal HD in my 6 gen time capsule started giving errors so I replaced it with a 4TB WD "Red Plus" NAS drive (that uses CMR technology for supposedly higher reliability). It is OK, not great, as a backup system.
I also had another backup drive connected to the USB port, and can confirm what others have said - it is a very slow interface, much slower than the read/write speed of the drive. I averaged about 10MB/s real world performance. I suggest lower your expectations if you plan to connect a drive to the USB port.
I also had another backup drive connected to the USB port, and can confirm what others have said - it is a very slow interface, much slower than the read/write speed of the drive. I averaged about 10MB/s real world performance. I suggest lower your expectations if you plan to connect a drive to the USB port.
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