AC routing solution with airplay, time machine

[Orlandoengineer]

I've been lurking around the forums for about a month, but finally decided to join.

I have a home office that requires a wired ethernet connection for one computer. I have two media centers...one of which has a device that needs a wired ethernet connection. I routinely use Airplay for both music and video on Apple TV at both media centers. Both of my laptops use time machine as backup, and I'd like to do this wirelessly. I'd like to have my main itunes served (both music and video) from either my laptop or a usb drive plugged into the main router (not the bridge).

After about 20 hours of reading reviews and this forum, I decided to purchase two R7000s last night so I could build an AC media bridge to the main media center (with the wired ethernet connection). Now I'm reading this morning that R7000 is incompatible with Airplay, especially when the AppleTV is behind a bridge. I debated the AC68, but went with the R7000 because of Time Machine support.

Is this Airplay problem something that can be cured by third party firmware? Or should I take the R7000s back and purchase different equipment. Nothing has been opened yet so returns are not an issue.

 

[azazel1024]

Try the Synology DS114. $190 (or less), will do everything you ask and a lot better performance and options than hanging a drive off the router.

Then you could also look at a couple of less expensive 11ac routers, since I am at least guessing you don't actually need an AC1900 setup (butt-uming). So you could probably return them and get a couple of AC1200 ~$100 routers if you wanted to stay with 11ac, and use the $200 you saved to get the DS114. I think QNAP has similar features in their single disk NAS.

 

[htismaqe]

I can't speak to Airplay support but there are also known issues with using the R7000 as a bridge behind another R7000.

 

[Orlandoengineer]

I've got several WD USB external drives, so I'd prefer not converting everything yet to a Synology NAS yet and just reuse one or two of those if possible. I'm running a N56U right now.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[sfx2000]

I've been lurking around the forums for about a month, but finally decided to join.

I have a home office that requires a wired ethernet connection for one computer. I have two media centers...one of which has a device that needs a wired ethernet connection. I routinely use Airplay for both music and video on Apple TV at both media centers. Both of my laptops use time machine as backup, and I'd like to do this wirelessly. I'd like to have my main itunes served (both music and video) from either my laptop or a usb drive plugged into the main router (not the bridge).

After about 20 hours of reading reviews and this forum, I decided to purchase two R7000s last night so I could build an AC media bridge to the main media center (with the wired ethernet connection). Now I'm reading this morning that R7000 is incompatible with Airplay, especially when the AppleTV is behind a bridge. I debated the AC68, but went with the R7000 because of Time Machine support.

Is this Airplay problem something that can be cured by third party firmware? Or should I take the R7000s back and purchase different equipment. Nothing has been opened yet so returns are not an issue.

You seem to have an Apple centric house and requirements - I strongly suggest you look at the Apple Airport Extreme AC - it does support TimeMachine to an attached USB drive, and there's no issues with AirPlay, even in an "extended" bridge configuration.

AirPlay is licensed to a few vendors out there - for example Onkyo and Denon for their receivers, but other implementations are reverse engineered, as Apple has not published public specs... same goes with TimeMachine support for third parties - this is also a reverse engineered solution - do you trust your backups to someone that doesn't have published specs? On a filesystem/network stack that is also reverse engineered?

Should also note that AirPlay video sharing - this is iTunes only...

Third-party firmware is even a bit more worrisome... who are you going to call when things blow up there?

AirPort Extreme AC's are $184USD on Amazon... I would encourage you to check them out.

 

[azazel1024]

I've got several WD USB external drives, so I'd prefer not converting everything yet to a Synology NAS yet and just reuse one or two of those if possible. I'm running a N56U right now.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

The Snyology and QNAP NAS have USB ports. AFAIK you don't HAVE to use a drive in the internal bay to use a USB drive.

 

[htismaqe]

USB external enclosures make great backup drives for a single-drive NAS...