Why won’t the Airport Extreme mount the USB 3.0 External Hard Drive

airportusb

I just decided to upgrade to a USB 3.0 Hard Drive Enclosure. I regularly use my Airport Extreme to share the hard drive using an older enclosure. I know that the Airport Extreme won't have USB 3.0, but I expected it to be backwards compatible. Am I wrong, or is something else amiss?

I'm using this Thermaltake Max 5G, and it mounts when I attach it to a MacBook Pro running Lion.

Best Answer

Per Thermaltake support:

The Airport Extreme Base Station cannot provide the proper driver support for the docking unit. The docking station was designed to be directly connected to a computer's USB port.

Not a very satisfactory answer, but I guess it is the answer. I expected it to simply function as USB 2.0 speeds, rather than not working at all.

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