wacky.banana

For quite some time now the solution I have had in place for sharing a number of large USB drives and a couple of printers across my network was to have them all attached to one PC then use them as shared resources. This is now becoming a pain as well as expensive on the leccy as the PC in question is on all the time.

Furthermore the noise of PC fans going when I want some peace and quiet is doing my head in.

What is the best solution here? For the printers I know I can use a printserver that connects directly to the lan via ethernet or wireless. What do I do with the USB drives?

Is there an ethernet "server" type devise that will handle both printers and drives and basically link them directly into my network, to be accessed as shared devices via IP addresses?

FYI, I am looking to handle a total of 6 devices in this way (3 printers and 3 usb drives). Been trawling the net for the past 2 days but nothing really stands out as an all-encompassing solution.

Cheers guys.

WB

JT386

you could try and find a bigger version of something like this...but its a start

Belkin Network USB Hub Review - Networking Reviews - TrustedReviews

wacky.banana

James,

Thanks for your response. Yes, this is definitely a start. Nice looking device as well.

I notice it can't handle concurrent sharing of devices. Forgive my ignorance, but is this simply a design issue with this particular hub or can USB devices not be shared concurrently in this way?

Cheers

WB

PS: Forgot to say that whatever solution is suggested it needs to be high speed

HankScorpio

You can get routers and devices like the linksys slug that will let you habe USB devices off them but typically, you'll get two ports, not clear how they would deal with hubs if it all.

What about a near silent EEE Atom and dangle as much as you like off there?

boxst

Hello

I bought a D-link DNS-323 (from eBay for £70). It doesn't come with a drive, but just put a 1TB Seagate drive in there (on sale at Maplins).

This connects to your network and allows you to share files. It is also a Bit Torrent Client and can act as a uPNP server for streaming media. And an iTunes server.

An amazing little device.

Steve

wacky.banana

HankScorpio,

Thanks for the input. Yes I guess an Atom is a solution, albeit an expensive one. Still means I have to leave a pc of some sorts on all the time whilst I would prefer a hardware/routing type device if one is available.

Can anyone throw some light on my concurrent use question please? If using a hardware/routing solution does not give this then I guess I will have to live with a PC server always being there and always being on.

Look forward to your inputs.

Cheers

WB

PS Just to clarify; I already have 6 devices which I am looking to share. Not looking for NAS boxes, as suggested by someone here, as I want to share a mix of existing parallel port printers and large usb drives.