ext hdd , can it be connected to 2 pcs at the same time

[volvofl10]

heres the question

i have a 200gb external hdd in a 6 pin firewire and usb 2 case with its own mains power supply.

is it possible to connect this drive to 2 computers at the same time without causing any damage ?

i normally use the firewire 1394 connection, and you can daisy chain 21 devices with it .( neither machine has usb 2) 1 machine uses a 6 pin to 4 pin cable ( laptop), and the other uses the 6 pin to 6 pin cable

also, i use this drive on both machines individually with no problems at all

 

rather than network 2 x pc's , which i would only use to transfer files about, do you think it would be possible to link this drive to both machines at the same time , and in effect use tis as the network connection . only for transferring files between the 2 machines.

 

i could just connect it and see what happens, but it could damage 1 or 2 pc's and/or the drive itself , so advise would be welcome please

[kirk1701™]

heres the question

i have a 200gb external hdd in a 6 pin firewire and usb 2 case with its own mains power supply.

is it possible to connect this drive to 2 computers at the same time without causing any damage ?

i normally use the firewire 1394 connection, and you can daisy chain 21 devices with it .( neither machine has usb 2) 1 machine uses a 6 pin to 4 pin cable ( laptop), and the other uses the 6 pin to 6 pin cable

also, i use this drive on both machines individually with no problems at all

 

rather than network 2 x pc's , which i would only use to transfer files about, do you think it would be possible to link this drive to both machines at the same time , and in effect use tis as the network connection . only for transferring files between the 2 machines.

 

i could just connect it and see what happens, but it could damage 1 or 2 pc's and/or the drive itself , so advise would be welcome please

 

Don't try it volvo. YES it will ruin the drive.

 

Hate to tell yu bud but your best bit is to network both of them together. Or, connect the hard drive to one machine or the other but never both.

[Shamus_McFartfinger]

As Cap. Kirk has already answered your question, might I ask one instead? I'm curious as to what benefit you would have in sharing a drive this way. Is there a need to swap/copy/transfer files between the 2 machines? Obviously, networking them is the most elegant solution. Failing that, installing some USB ports would work but it'd be a bit messier. (Having to copy files twice etc). A shared network drive gets my vote also.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

I'd go with a shared network drive too!

 

Had a newsletter off some computer company the other day that was selling them for ?79.99.

 

They only run at 10/100 mbit but it could hold 2 drives. Stick a couple of 400GB ones in there and you're laughing!

[Shamus_McFartfinger]

It wasn't the new Netgear NAS thingy, was it?

 

http://www.netgear.com/products/details/SC101.php

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Aye, that be the one!

[volvofl10]

thank you for the replies everyone

 

the reason for wanting to do this was mainly because i already have the equipment, and i find myself working off the 2 differant machines . often editing video camera stuff, which is a bit intensive and resource hungry on the spec machines i have .i often do a bit, save it, then go back to it the next day to do a bit more.

Both machines only have 40gb hdd's in them , which is enough for each job i do, but i find im using the external 200gb drive more often than not, as the I/O with the firewire drive is quicker than the internal drives themselves ( both drives are laptop 2.5inch drives and have low I/O speeds)

whilst i have 1 machine doing editing, the kids like to use the other one, and save pictures they draw, or do school homework and save it, so its handy to be able to just switch from 1 pc to another and change the ext drive over so i can just carry on.

thats the main reason behind my asking the question oriinally.

 

both machines are on a wireless router, but i never figured out how to make a wireless network. it got confusing as 1 was on win2k and the other on xp pro . Due to the fact 1 is a laptop that gets moved around, a wired network between the 2 would be inconvenient .

i do like the look of that shared network drive , and i already have the router, but by the time i get 2 decent hdd's and the actual drive box it becomes expensive for what i want ( would like) it to do , although its a tempting device to buy

the main problem with moving my current ext drive about is the I/O speed of the computers, as it takes about 20 minutes to transfer 2gb from the pc's to the ext drive

[Shamus_McFartfinger]

Mate, if both of your machines are already talking to the router then most of the hard work is already done. Making your external drive available to the network is pretty simple with XP/w2k. We can help if you wish.

[Shamus_McFartfinger]

Aye, that be the one!

 

I was looking at one of these thingies myself. Dunno yet as there's a few things about them that irritates me.

 

. Custom file system - meaning you can't install a drive with any files on it.

. It relies on custom software - files are inaccesible without the proprietary software running in the background. This software must be installed on all machines wishing to access the NAS.

 

. Only 10/100 - this just sucks. Gigabit would cost about $10 to implement as standard.

 

 

On the upside, it's a cheap-ish way to add 500gigs. They're about $180 here. HDDs (Western Digital 250GB 8MB IDE - Caviar SE WD2500JB, 7200 RPM) are around $170 each. That works out at around $500 for 500gigs. Not bad really.

 

<pondering mode off>

[LIGHTNING UK!]

hmmm custom file system... didn't see that bit!

 

I guess they're not as convenient as they first seem then.

 

If it weren't for login scripts etc, installing the proprietary software would be a right pain in the arse for anything other than a network consisting of a couple of machines.

 

Totally with you on the 10/100 mbit thing though. For HDDs, those kinds of speeds are no where near enough. They've pretty much shot themselves in the foot by not going 1 gbit.

[Shamus_McFartfinger]

hmmm custom file system... didn't see that bit!

 

I guess they're not as convenient as they first seem then.

 

Yeah. I didn't see it the first time either. Bit of a bastard if the unit died as the files would be unrecoverable.

 

If it weren't for login scripts etc, installing the proprietary software would be a right pain in the arse for anything other than a network consisting of a couple of machines.

Yep. Another reason I'm not all that keen on buying one. The principle behind the thing is sound but, as you say, with half a dozen or more machines it'd be a complete bastard. For home use with one or 2 machines it'd be a great idea. I wish the Buffalo Terastation was a bit cheaper.

 

http://www.buffalotech.com/products/produc...7&categoryid=19

 

Totally with you on the 10/100 mbit thing though. For HDDs, those kinds of speeds are no where near enough. They've pretty much shot themselves in the foot by not going 1 gbit.

 

Ya gotta wonder why they did this. What's a gigabit PCI card worth? About 50 bucks retail? (20 quid?). A company as large as SMC would have little trouble incorporating gigabit for a very low cost given they already have the technology for their routers and switches. Even the option to buy it as an extra would have made it seem a better deal.

 

I don't suppose you've looked at other NAS units recently? Opinions?

Edited September 24, 2005 by Shamus_McFartfinger

[LIGHTNING UK!]

I don't suppose you've looked at other NAS units recently? Opinions?

 

Nope, I'm afraid not.

 

I only looked at that one because it was the main item in a newsletter from a company called novatech and I thought 'oh, cool!' when I first saw it. No intention of buying one, just liked that idea of it!

[Shamus_McFartfinger]

Bugger. I was hoping you might have looked around a bit. It would have saved me the trouble.

 

On the same sort of topic, I finally arseholed my Celeron 700 yesterday so I'm thinking of just adding another PC (maybe a 2gig P4 or Athlon 2000 or something) and just filling it with large drives.

 

Still a pain though as each drive has to be mapped as a single drive letter. I suppose SATA drives would be the proper way to go but that means building a relatively expensive machine just to hold harddrives. What a pain in the arse.

 

Suggestions? Opinions? Anyone?

[lfcrule1972]

I live 10 mins away from a Novatech - thats where I got my NEC 2510 from. I could pop in and collect your shopping list for you boss

 

Sorry the rest of this is !!

[Boycott Linkyo]

This might interest you:

http://freenas.org/

 

[lfcrule1972]

Woa !! How did you find this old topic ?

 

[Shamus_McFartfinger]

This might interest you:

http://freenas.org/

 

I actually had a play with this while I was fluffing about with NAS storage and I had a huge problem with it. The problem was having to turn off DMA to get the boot CD to actually boot. I discovered this after many hours of swearing at it. Pretty dodgy IMO. Also, I wanted storage without having to install an OS on yet another PC.

 

After using the Netgear SC101 for a couple of months I came to realise that it was, without doubt, the most frustrating piece of hardware I?ve ever used and it now has a home in a landfill somewhere.

 

I also used NASLite for a while and found it impossible to find the correct gigabit cards for it to work properly. When I did find something that was supported by the Linux kernel, I could only achieve around 8MB/sec on a P4/2.4gig PC. The non-gigabit version worked fine but it was just way too slow. Great for small files. Not great for backing up 500gigs.

 

After much thought I?ve decided that I?m going to buy some bigger cases and add more sata drives to my existing PCs. SATA drives can be spanned so 4 x 250gig drives is a terabyte drive that I can stream to my XBox. A similar setup in another machine will be the backup.