External HD, bottlenecked by USB 1.1?

[Earl]

I have an external TB HD plugged into my Airport Extreme by USB, I think into the extreme it's only USB 1.1

Its a LaCie drive, with firewire outputs but Extreme doesn't take firewire. I've decided that it's best to stream my itunes music (well actually I use spotify most of the time now anyway), iphoto pictures, as I have thousands, and downloaded videos etc, directly from my external to my laptop. This works okay but for example backing up even when connecting via ethernet, is kinda slow. I suspect this is because of USB 1.1?

Anyway, is there a way to try and wire this up better? Can I take the HD out of the case and perhaps somehow link it to ethernet? Or can that not be done? I know my friend has a 'device' that lets you plug hard drives in, then you can connect it via USB, do those things exist but with ethernet? I have gigabit ports on my macbook and the extreme so it would seem to make more sense..

 

[Cadelin]

How old is this airport extreme? I would have thought it should be usb 2.0 and if thats the case the problem may be else where.


Reading some reviews of the airport extreme it does say that the transfer rate between to an externally connected usb harddrive is relatively slow.

It is also possible to get adapters that will allow you to turn a usb device into a network attached one. I have no idea how good this is but this is the first one google found! Solent Cables Network Accessories - Solent Cables

 

[Zenith.UK]

I was trying to figure out what was connected to what but I think I've got it now.

Yes, there are hard drive enclosures with network connections called, surprisingly enough, Network Attached Storage (NAS).
This example from Scan takes SATA hard drives up to 1TB in capacity and has gigabit connectivity as well as USB 2.0. It also has a USB host socket for you to plug in other USB items like printers, hard drives and USB sticks.
Icybox IB-NAS4210-B 7in1 Server for 1x3.5" SATA HDD inc 2xUSB & Gigabit Lan - Scan.co.uk

It's £92 though.