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Mac Mini or Airport Extreme external HD

M

miniman12

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 16, 2009
6
0
Hi

I cant seem to find the answer to this question so hopefully someone out there can offer some advice!

I currently have a macbook pro, with a wireless router connected to an airport extreme base station. Attached to this are an EX HD which has my itunes on it etc and also a printer, it all works very nice at the mo.

Now I am going to be getting a mac mini for the spare room as we want another computer, and thought i may as well use it as a media server so my PS3 can access the files and maybe also occasionally use my tv as a display (to watch downloaded movies etc via front row).

My question is do i plug in my router to the mac mini, and connect the printer and hard drive to that, or do i keep the airport extreme as it is? As it would be a media server it seems daft to send stuff from the EX HD to the mac mini which then sends it back to the airport extreme and onto the PS3.

Basically should i just sell the AEBS? is it doing anything that a router and the mac mini arent? Will my macbook be able to wake the mini over lan to get access? I might also get airport expresses in the future for music streaming, do these work with normal routers?

Sorry for the long post thanks for any help!
 
Why do you have a wireless router AND an AEBS?
Did I read that wrong?

Just keep your current setup so that both computers can wirelessly share the printer and HDD.

AEBS should be your only wireless router. Is it a newer dual-band model? Even more reason to ditch the old router as you can run 2 networks...a n (for the Macs) and a g for the PS3 and other stuff (like iPhones/Touch..etc)

I do have two becuase my AEBS is 3 years old and single band so my AEBS is a 5GHz 802.11n and the other router ($40 netgear) serves up the 802.11g 'clients'.

AEBS is a much, MUCH more reliable and powerful piece of equipment...I'd sell the other wireless router over the AEBS.

EDIT: we have our Mini serving up media files over our network although we have AppleTV
 
I think you should sell your router connect the printer, external hds and such to the mini, that is how I currently have my things running, I think that the wake on LAN will work with any router but I might be wrong. Besides if you connect your HDD to the Mini, you would be able to share media you have on it with the PS3 too.
 
Sorry i should have been clearer. As the AEBS doesn't have an adsl input, my adsl line goes into my ISP wireless router and is hard wired (ethernet) to the AEBS which produces the wireless network (the wireless on the stock router is turned off its basically an OTT modem!).

Basically I was thinking of connecting everything to the mac mini and hard wiring that into the stock router for net access. Everything else can access the net via the stock router wirelessly (PS3, Macbook pro, Iphone) and the mac mini is the media server / print server. But when the mac mini is in sleep mode, will the PS3, Iphone and Macbook be able to wake it up over lan to access the hard drive and printer? I don't want to have to turn the mini on manually to print or use the Hd every time.

Will the external hard drive connected to the mac mini be able to act as a time capsule for both the mac mini and my macbook pro?

Cheers
 
I could still use the AEBS (its the newest one) for dual band but still connect the printer and hd to the AEBS.

I would primarily use a media server for playing music through the PS3, playing music on the mac mini speakers (using iphone remote) and also on another set of speakers connected to an express base station.

Whats the best way of getting rid of the stock router? I really dont get why apple didnt include an adsl input on the AEBS!
 
Copying files to a hard drive connected to a Mac is going to be faster than copying them to a hard drive connected to an AEBS since there's much more processing power. Your MacBook will be able to wake the mini from sleep if you set Energy Saver preferences to wake for network access. I don't know if the PS3 or the iPhone will wake it.
 
Indeed, even my crappy Tiscali router is a wireless router and a modem. Its pretty much standard in the UK for ADSL providers. Another example of apple designing for the US market and selling them everywhere. I only needed it for the NAS solution and network printing.
 
miniman12 said:
Indeed, even my crappy Tiscali router is a wireless router and a modem. Its pretty much standard in the UK for ADSL providers. Another example of apple designing for the US market and selling them everywhere. I only needed it for the NAS solution and network printing.
Click to expand...

No, the AEBS is a network router, as opposed to a broadband router. There are many routers of such kind, which are more general purpose and reusable than a router which is tied to a specific broadband interface.
 
miniman12 said:
Indeed, even my crappy Tiscali router is a wireless router and a modem. Its pretty much standard in the UK for ADSL providers. Another example of apple designing for the US market and selling them everywhere. I only needed it for the NAS solution and network printing.
Click to expand...

Well heck, I can buy a modem/router combo here in the states too if I wanted a sub-par experience. Either cable or DSL...but as I said, and cube said...it is NOT made to be a modem/router it is simply designed and sold as a network router to be able to serve the greatest number of customers who can just connect this to their modems and be up and running in no time.

Here in my city, we have broadband via cable, fibre optic and DSL. Would you suggest that Apple sell 3 seperate versions of AEBS to handle the varied inputs, or somehow incorporate all three types of modems in the box?

...would make for a pretty expensive piece of equipment I'd say.
 
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