How to Use a Hard Drive Wirelessly Over Airport

Apple's newest line of Airport routers allows you to connect an external harddrive that can be accessed by any computer on the network. If you've never used a "wireless" hard drive solution like this, it can be a little tricky. Follow these steps carefully and you should have any problems hooking up your external harddrive.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. 
    

   With the Airport turned on, connect the external harddrive to the USB port on the back. If you'd like to use several hard drives over the network, first plug in a USB hub and connect the drives to that instead.

2. 
    

   On one of the Macs on the network, open the AirPort Utility from your utilities folder. This will allow you to manipulate settings for your router.

3. 
    

   Select your Airport router from the left hand side of the window. Click the Manual Setup button at the bottom to open the settings window.

4. 
    

   Click the "Disks" icon at the top of the window. You should see your external harddrive listed. Click the "File Sharing" tab at the top and check the "Enable file sharing" box.

5. 
    

   You can access the external harddrive through finder almost like you would if the external hard drive were plugged right into your computer. When you open finder, you should notice a new item on the left hand side of the finder window with the same name as your router. Click it to access the external harddrive over your network.