The NAS devices that can't be written to or accessed under Apple's new OS X "Lion" extend beyond Western Digital and have touched Iomega and LaCie, among others, and could take weeks to fix.

The network-attached storage (NAS) devices that can't be written to or accessed under Apple's new OS X "Lion" extend beyond Western Digital and have touched Iomega and LaCie, among others, and could take weeks to fix.

Representatives at several storage companies called the problem "widespread" and "industry-wide".

At issue appears to be Apple's decision to upgrade to DHX2 authentication within its Netatalk 2.2. That has left users trying to back up or access files with Time Machine on the affected NAS devices - which use an older version of Netatalk - unable to do so, and has prompted errors while trying to access files.

Western Digital , and said that the company was withouta workaround while it constructed a fix. But NAS providers LaCie and Iomegahave also added support pages in the meantime, essentially saying the same thing.

A spokeswoman for Western Digital said Thursday night that a fix would take weeks. "This is not an issue geared just at WD, but an industry-wide issue with NAS devices in general," she wrote in an email. "It is not specific to WD. We will be supporting OSX Lion Time Machine with an update in the next few weeks. Support for OSX Lion Time Machine has been more complicated and has taken the industry longer than expected based on the changes that Apple made to their Apple file protocol."

Iomega also said that it needed to issue a StorCenter firmware upgrade for its NAS devices. "Iomega is working through the same OS X Lion Time Machine issues as other NAS providers that include Mac compatibility," a spokesman said in an email. "In Lion, Apple has discontinued support for DHX authentication which is what almost all NAS vendors use for AFP / Time Machine (Via netatalk).

"We expect to have a firmware upgrade in the offing but I am unable to give you a specific date," the Iomega spokesman added.

LaCie representatives were unable to be reached at press time, although a support representative contacted by PCMag.com said he expected a fix "sooner than later," he said. "I don't know exactly when it's coming, but it could be as early as next month. It's generated a lot of calls."

LaCie's OS X Lion support page notes that many LaCie consumer and professional drives, such as the Network Space 2, Network Space MAX, Wireless Space, d2 Network 2, 2big Network 2,and 5big Network 2, among others, can't be accessed via Apple's Time Machine.

Synology has also begun offering a beta driver which apparently fixes the problem with its drives.