AirPort Extreme and multiple HDD's

Question

Hey Guys i think i am not alone who set up his APE for home sharing.

So what have i done… I have a Airport extreme (latest version - 5.gen) and 3x powered 2TB HDD's. All are connected over an usb hub (active) which is plugged into the only available USB port. The HDD's contains Backups, iTunes Movies and music. So every time i am at home i am connected and let itunes and my apple tv do the rest.

Here is my question: Sometimes it seems very slow. Is it possible to boost its performance. Maybe a highend usb hub or something else? Its pretty annoying when the whole APE crashed and i have to restart?

Any best practices?? How did you solved the problem?

Answer 1

Yes, it can be very slow this way, at least compared to other methods. You have a few throttle points: the USB connection, the USB and the wireless connection to your computer & Apple TV. If you stream a movie from your iTunes Library to Apple TV while Time Machine is backing up, you are effectively routing two data streams through the USB hub, and three data streams through your wireless router.

Your best bet is to get some of the hard drives off of the AirPort Extreme's USB drive. The exact solution can vary greatly based on your exact network and computer setup. A solution could involve moving some external hard drives to plug directly into your Mac or replacing some of the drives with a NAS that can be plugged in via Gigabit Ethernet.

If you can post more specifics in your question, I can update this answer to be more specific as well. How many Macs do you have? What types? Which Macs access which drives for which purposes? Etc.