Airport Extreme Teardown: Hack This Router With Your Own Hard Drive

Airport Extreme Teardown: Hack This Router With Your Own Hard Drive

Apple announced a new Airport Extreme earlier this week, and iFixit has already torn it apart. The good news? It’s a hacker’s dream.

Instead of opting for a new, custom case for the new router, Apple has opted to just re-use the case of its Time Capsule — just with the hard drive and connectors ripped out. That means there’s a gaping 3.5-inch drive-shaped void on the inside, just waiting to be filled.

The iFixit teardown reveals that the SATA/power connectors required to use a drive are absent on the device they ripped apart. But no matter: if you feel so inclined, you could use the USB port and wire a bus-powered 2.5-inch hard drive around inside the case, as 9to5mac points out. Voila, a Time Capsule on a budget. Kinda. [iFixit]


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