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adamschoa... adamschoa...
 

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M$1.00  Funded By Mahalo ? |  March 16, 2009 03:07 AM

Can I hook an external drive up to two computers at once and use it?

I curretly have one external drive I use for all my media. I also have two macs. I was curious if I could hook up that drive to both computers (one via firewire, one via USB) and use it?

My guess would be no, since you wouldn't want to be reading/writing to the drive at the same time, but I'm not sure so I thought I asked.
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jb68niou1 jb68niou1
 
 March 19, 2009 12:36 AM
Yes, I currently do this with a VOX NAS eternal hard drive, that is connected to my four computers through the network.

I bought the enclosure for 40 dollars. And gave it a 500 gb hard drive. It is real nice because i can access my files from any computer in the house.

It can also be used as a remote drive through the internet, but i have not set that up yet.

Here is a link for an enclosure with no drive:

http://www.amazon.com/Ethernet-Network-Attached-External-Enclosure/dp/B001Q5JAEA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1237422825&sr=8-1

Here is a link for an enclosure with a drive:

http://www.ecost.com/detail.aspx?edp=41638140
Source(s):
http://www.amazon.com/Ethernet-Network-Attached-External-Enclosure/dp/B001Q...

http://www.ecost.com/detail.aspx?edp=41638140



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hartwell hartwell
 
March 16, 2009 03:18 AM
no.

although you could have an external drive connected to one computer (via eSATA, USB, Firewire or any other scheme) then share drives mounted on that device through your OS networking to the other computers on your network.

Another solution would be to hang the drive on your network as an NAS. (Network Attached Storage) Then you could mount it from any computer on your network.

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johnsonaar... johnsonaar...
 
March 16, 2009 04:25 AM - New Source
To clarify, the no in this answer is to using as USB attached to multiple computers, and that is correct, you can't.

BUT to further clarify, you could share it via some sort of networking method.

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morriss003 morriss003
 
March 16, 2009 04:45 AM
I have a USB hub. On one side, there are connections for two computers. On the other side are the connections for the devices. For each device there is a button that switches between computer A and computer B. So this might work for you. However, I have never tried using this hub for more than one computer so I can not say how or whether it works.

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edenprairi... edenprairi...
 
March 18, 2009 03:26 AM
LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) & any old PC.
Search Lifehacker for "Best Home Server Software".
Source(s):
http://lifehacker.com/5162026/best-home-server-software


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