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Forum Discussion
Adding NAS to RBR 50
My Apple Airport Time Capsule died. I have an RBR 50 with one satellite which is connected to my ISP modem (arris). One ethernet port is used by a time capsule acting as a WAP in the office (connected via 200 yd cat 5e cable) and that system is working fine, however, there's not enough room on that time capsule to back up the home computers (4).
I'd like to add a storage device to the house to replace the time capsule. I realize the USB port doesn't work for that purpose on the RBR 50. I need about 3TB of storage space. I don't need cloud storage, just a simple way to back up data using time machine.
Can someone recommend either an external storage drive that will plug into the ethernet WAN port on the RBR 50? I'm unclear if you can use a USB/LAN adaptor - but I'm thinking that doesn't work based on the articles I've found.
Thanks!
7 Replies
congratulations on getting ethernet to work over 200 yards, given that it is 'rated' for only 90 meters (328 feet). Over the years, I have always found that things often work at greater distances, and it is encouraging to find that this application has succeeded.
Yes, all the inexpensive solutions offer only USB connections, which are not supported on the Orbi product line. (sigh).
There are 4TB NAS solutions (with ethernet) starting at under $200.
Something to consider is "how paranoid am I?"
The backup is to keep data safe in case the primary computer fails.
What happens if the backup drive fails?
- No big deal. Just get a new backup and start over.
If the primary computers are still intact, there has been "no real loss". - Get a NAS with RAID drives (2), so that failure of one hard drive does not mean all the data is lost.
Thanks CrimpOn,
I'm looking at the Synology system, and realizing that we're in trouble if/when the other Airport TC dies, so we'll need to spend more $ to have a redundant system in 2 locations (house vs. office). Also considering cloud at this point. I purchased some temp USB drives just to make sure we're covered in the short term while we sort this out.
Also, just wanted to correct myself - ethernet connection was 200' not 200 yds.
Thanks all!
- No big deal. Just get a new backup and start over.
CrimpOn has hit most of the points.
Another option I'd throw out there is if you have an old desktop sitting around, you can either install windows server to it or something like Freenas (or other 3rd party NAS software) and use your own NAS setup.
I did that and its much higher performing and I can customize it more for home use. I think I'm running around 32TB of storage currently on it at a fraction of a cost of doing that with a premade NAS.
Hi, first timer here and I have a similar problem....
I have been backing up to an old TimeCapsule device which was connected to one of the ethernet ports on my RBR50 for years. TimeCapsule is full so I wanted to run an external hard drive off the RBR50 USB port. However I'm learning
this won't work because ReadyShare is no longer supported for USB external hard drives. If I purchase an ethernet hard drive or an ethernet NAS and connect it to one of the free ethernet ports on the RBR50, will I be able to backup from TimeMachine?
When the RBR50 product was designed, the engineers put in LOTS of hardware and there were vague promises that eventually they would be useful. (the USB port and Bluetooth) Alas, those resources never became useful and Netgear dropped the USB port from version 2 of the RBR50 and never included one in the AX line of products.
So, USB: never. Ethernet: Yes. People do it all the time.
Thanks that's helpful. So if I purchase an ethernet NAS and connect it to the router do I need to do anything configuration-wise on the RBR50 for it to "see" it.... and (more importantly) for TimeMachine to access if?
