I recently moved my RAID USB drive from a direct connection to my MacBook Pro to the network level in order to make it accessible to all my devices.
Despite evidence to the contrary, I was not able to connect the drive directly to my network hub, so I set up my old Airport Extreme as a bridge between the two. This worked just fine, and the MacBook now backs up to the RAID drive just fine.
I discovered, however, that my Dell Desktop, which is on the same network, fails to recognize it; in fact, I eventually realized that it wasn’t seeing the Airport Extreme, even. After some on-line searching, I concluded that I should instal the Windows version of the Airport Utility, which immediately detected the Airport Extreme and asked for the password!
Alas, this was the end of the line, despite the fact that I had enabled the SMB 1 protocol, which, I understand, is disabled in Windows by default due to security vulnerabilities but required by the Airport Extreme. It refused to accept the password, and all attempts to configure manually from the Windows end failed with an error.
While it may well be possible to remedy this situation, the problem is temporary, as I have a WD RAID drive on order which is due to arrive later this month. Let’s hope that’s the end of the complications!
