Can’t Roll Your Own Time Capsule

Didn’t know this, but you can’t use an external USB drive connected to an Apple AirPort Extreme basestation for Time Machine backups. I thought you could on newer Extreme models, but no, you can’t on any Extreme model. I essentially wanted to roll my own Time Capsule by plugging a USB drive into my AirPort Extreme. I’ve shared a drive before and assumed the new firmware allowed network-based Time Machine backups.

Apple does not support this although it may work. This article is the most referenced source regarding this unsupported setup.