Wanna use Time Machine with Airport Extreme?

Do this:

  1. Upgrade Airport Extreme firmware to latest
  2. Format the USB disk you want to use (I recommend a 7200RPM disk, at least) with HFS+ Journaling
  3.  Plug into your Airport Extreme. Share it (I created some accounts on the Airport Extreme)
  4. Run this command on the computers you want to backup (no quotes, all one line)  ”defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1”
  5. Make sure you can connect to the drive from the system you want to backup
  6. Then go into Time Machine Preferences, pick that drive
  7. Test

It’s like you just bought Time Capsule. But you didn’t. Also, I’d seriously recommend doing that first backup over Ethernet, not wireless.

Notes