2 port external HD?

[Samson]

Hi there

Does anyone know of an external HD that has 2 USB or 2 firewire ports on it, so that it can be used on two computers at once?

Thanks

[OutToLunch]

Don't think that's going to happen...

Your best bet would be to get a decent drive with a LAN connection on it and connect 2 PCs to it via a switch/hub/voodoo.

[mark]

Buffallo Terastation?

[Samson]

I cant network it, i've been told by the LEA IT Folks that its too insecure. Their word is final.

I am almost positive I have seen this done.

[Domino]

Really?

why? what is going to be stored on it? and how is it more insecure than say, a server with the MIS system on it?

Or any network storage for that matter.

I'm with OutToLunch on this one though, I don't think you'd get it doing two way USB comms - the drives with multiple ports normally act as usb hubs

[everton4europe]

I dont know if it would work. but would going through a usb hub then connect that to the 2 pc's and then to the drive.

But if you put access permissions on the drive then the rive should be secure, so only certain users can access it.

[greenfieldsupport]

You can get stuff like that from dabs,..


try:

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...10000,47610000

they do bigger ones.

but for a two port, thats not bad

[DMcCoy]

You can't connect two machines to the same filesystem without toasting it!

Its NAS, SAN or clustering.

[Domino]

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...10000,47610000

they do bigger ones.

but for a two port, thats not bad

the USB2 in that means its a USB 2.0 port, theres actually only one usb port in it

[OutToLunch]

If the two machines are connected to a network anyway then the drive being connected by USB makes it no more secure than those two machines, the same would apply to a LAN based solution.

If you wanted pander to the super paranoid, you could install 2 new NICs in the PCs, buy a small 4 port switch then connect the new cards only to the switch and the new drive only to the switch. Set different IP ranges, set up VLANs to drop traffic to it yadda yadda. For all that, it's still only as secure as the machine it's connected to, basically.

You won't be able to connect 2 machines to the same drive at the same time via USB.

[DMcCoy]

A fileshare really would be the easiest way. Something *has* to control the access to the file system, thats why you can't plug two things in to a normal external drive. SAN still requires a cluster file system if the same LUN is to be accessed. NAS, like the file share has the host controlling locking etc.

Two machines plugged into one normal disk is not possible. Thats *why* they only have one port :P

[Geoff]

Two machines plugged into one normal disk is not possible

It is possible, just something you wouldn't want to do. You'd just end up with a disk full of corrupt data.