So I was cleaning up my desk and had the awesome idea to move my backup hard drive from my Mac (used for Time Machine and extra storage) to the cubby where my router lives and connect it via the usb port on the router. I was able to get it networked, and re-established to Time Machine. I quickly learned that the transfer speed is wayy slower over WiFi rather than being locally connected to the Mac via usb. Additionally, I felt my WiFi speed on all other devices was suffering.
So I picked up my hard drive and tried to move it back to my Mac. In the process of connecting it to the router, I must have encrypted the drive, to where neither my MacBook or PC can see the drive. I can see it’s connected in device manager, but I can’t connect to it or see it in file explorer.
Question 1. Is there any way to un-encrypt the drive so my Mac can see it again?
Question 2. If I’m stuck this way, is there anything I can do to make it faster or smoother to access and backup to?
Question 3. If I wanted, could I replicate this setup with an old pc tower with networked drives connected via Ethernet and get a better outcome?
I will also take any criticism that doesn’t fall under questions 1,2, and 3.
Thank you!