Questions & Answers for AirPort Extreme Base Station

Since someone bumped this on the 3... Yes, my brand new AE is connected to a 6120 and working fine. Plugged into the modem, power cycled the modem. Waited for it to come online then plugged in the AE and used the airport utility to configure the AE. Everything working fine. The only thing that maybe different for me from others is I work for my ISP and as such my 6120 is uncapped and wide open.

• Answered by Jonathan G from Emlenton
• 04-Jan-2012
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All ISP are compatible however you will need a separate modem for ADSL connections. For TalkTalk if you were given an ADSL modem with an Ethernet port, you shouldn't need to buy anything else. If you were given a modem that only uses a USB port, then you will have to purchase something like a Netgear DG834G.

• Answered by Simon H
• 22-Jan-2011
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Yes, but this is not supported by Apple, who supports Time Capsule for Time Machine use.

• Answered by Andrew H from Carmel
• 07-Dec-2010
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Yes, when open AirPort Utility to setup the second Extreme, select the second Extreme after you see it show up on the left side of the panel, continue, and then choose to have it join your wireless network.

• Answered by Andrew H from Carmel
• 23-Mar-2010
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I am preparing to do the same thing as you. I already have Time Capsule, and Airport Express, and will be purchasing an Airport Extreme for a different part of the house for hard-wire connections.

From what I understand, any of these devices can act as the primary router, and any of these devices can extend that range. By default, all of them are configured to be the primary router (if you change nothing), but if you plug it into your existing router (for initial setup purposes), and turn on your Mac, it will automatically walk you through the steps. I think the first question it asks if you want to extend your existing network. Once you select Yes, it does the rest for you, and you can safely unplug it and move it to its new location where it will extend your network.

• Answered by Steven C from Cocoa
• 18-Jan-2013
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Yes, you can use Airport Extreme without a dedicated computer connected to it, however you'll need some type of device to set it up initially such as an iPhone, iPad, Mac, PC, etc. Once the Airport Extreme is setup, then it will work stand alone. There is an Airport Utility App for iphone/ipad and the Airport Utility is included on any Mac and can be downloaded to a PC. You'll need the Airport Utility to setup the Airport Extreme to give it a name, password, etc.

• Answered by Donald S from Newport Beach
• 29-Oct-2012
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You can do this two ways. 1 - You can buy an airport express and set it up to "extend" the network. It picks up signals form the airport extreme wirelessly and re-broadcasts them to extend the range. 2 - You can use an airport express or an airport extreme that is connected to the initial airport extreme through an ethernet network (my house is wired for this with a LAN jack in every room). This provides the best result but you have to setup the 2nd airport extreme or express exactly the same as the first (same network name (SSID), same network password, same "create a network" option) except in bridge mode. The documentation for this is terrible but the result is very good. Apple tech support can help. It was such a hassle to figure out but in the end it was simple to setup. I should post something to save others the pain of it all but again apple tech support can help. For most option 1 is probably fine and frankly most people won't ever even need that. I hope that helps

• Answered by Scott S from Winnetka
• 04-Nov-2009
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The Express is physically smaller and has two Ethernet ports (10/100 Megabit) for devices (one for the WAN) while the Extreme has 4 (1 Gigabit) ports (one for the WAN, 3 for other devices)

The Express can share a printer while the Extreme can share USB printers or USB hard drives.

The Express natively supports AirPlay (stream music to wireless speakers) and has an analog/optical audio jack on it.

THe Express has an internal power supply while the Extreme uses an external power "brick"

The Extreme supports advanced features like RADIUS authentication

Oh, and there's the matter of about $80, too :)

• Answered by Doug B from Mesa
• 06-Nov-2012
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There are two parts to this question. The first part of this answer is "none"; Apple TV will not recognise additional media attached to it through either the Ethernet or USB ports.

However, because Apple TV is designed to operate just like any other iPod, it relies on having access to an iTunes library stored on your computer.

Because your iTunes library resides on your computer system, this brings the second part of this answer into relevance; it is very much possible to attach an external hard disk drive to your computer and move your iTunes media to the new drive in order to take advantage of more space. And because Apple TV can either sync or stream media from your computer's iTunes library, your Apple TV will automatically gain from these advantages.

The idea behind Apple TV's internal hard disk storage is to cache (temporarily store) the most-often or most-recently acquired media and have it available for instant access. However, if you have a large iTunes library and you want to expand it further, all you need to do is expand your Mac's storage capacity instead. Apple TV, whether by syncing or streaming, can access your entire iTunes library in any case.

And don't forget to consider a backup strategy for your Mac whilst you're considering expanding your iTunes library!

• Answered by Tony K from Theodore
• 21-May-2010
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