Two computers to One USB External Hard Drive

[Ziggy 0]

Is it possible to connect two computers to one external USB hard drive? If so, how? And, would there be a need for a special adapter?

[Beyond_Life 623]

What are you planning on doing with it? Backing up? Just storing documents? Streaming music or hosting stuff? Do you allready have a usb hdd? Or are you planning on buying one? Maybe you should think of buying a NAS. You can connect a NAS to your modem and let it be part of your network. Every pc in the network can reach the NAS and work with it. And if you buy a NAS with more then one bay, you can use it in Raid and backup. I own a Synology DS-110j and I have two laptops, a pc and two Samsung Galaxy that can work with it over wifi. I can even reach the NAS over the internet, no matter what pc im on.

Using a NAS isnt realy backing up. For realy truly backing up you should follow these rules: http://www.taobackup.com/

[Ziggy 0]

What are you planning on doing with it? Backing up? Just storing documents? Streaming music or hosting stuff? Do you allready have a usb hdd? Or are you planning on buying one? Maybe you should think of buying a NAS. You can connect a NAS to your modem and let it be part of your network. Every pc in the network can reach the NAS and work with it. And if you buy a NAS with more then one bay, you can use it in Raid and backup. I own a Synology DS-110j and I have two laptops, a pc and two Samsung Galaxy that can work with it over wifi. I can even reach the NAS over the internet, no matter what pc im on.

Using a NAS isnt realy backing up. For realy truly backing up you should follow these rules: http://www.taobackup.com/

 

Hi Beyond_Life,

Thanks for your response and especially the useful link provided. After a hard drive failure I wanted to ensure that losing data would be a thing of the past. Hence I bought a 1tb external usb hard drive thinking that I could transfer data from my laptop and my desktop pc all in the one go. This is possible but I would have to backup each computer seperately, connecting and disconnecting the usb lead as required. I thought there might have been a usb switch which would allow me to do this, but I believe that this is not possible. I will definitely look into NAS option and the Synology DS-110j.

Thanks, Ziggy.

[Beyond_Life 623]

What are you planning on doing with it? Backing up? Just storing documents? Streaming music or hosting stuff? Do you allready have a usb hdd? Or are you planning on buying one? Maybe you should think of buying a NAS. You can connect a NAS to your modem and let it be part of your network. Every pc in the network can reach the NAS and work with it. And if you buy a NAS with more then one bay, you can use it in Raid and backup. I own a Synology DS-110j and I have two laptops, a pc and two Samsung Galaxy that can work with it over wifi. I can even reach the NAS over the internet, no matter what pc im on.

Using a NAS isnt realy backing up. For realy truly backing up you should follow these rules: http://www.taobackup.com/

 

If you are going to buy a NAS, serious consider buying a NAS with more then one bay. Maybe even a NAS with 4 bays. Then set it up in Raid and al the discs will copy eachother. Then use the usb hdd to back up the NAS daily or every other day, and store that HDD away from your NAS.