[nfbcs] USB drive on two machines at the same time?

[Steve Jacobson]

Doug,

I think you are right, that just using two connections is going to be unreliable.  I would think that your best approach would be to share the drive on one 
computer and make it available to the other through a wireless network connection.  I assume that the problem with networks is that you don't want to be on 
a larger network and you may not have ethernet connections.  I know that Windows has a create wireless network wizzard that seems to be for sharing 
resources and devices as opposed to just connecting to a network, but I have never tried this.  Good luck.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson


On Wed, 06 Apr 2011 12:56:38 -0400, Doug Lee wrote:

>I think any drive or device allowing simultaneous connections would
>have to be designed especially for this usage, because something has
>to arbitrate the simultaneous access, deal with caching issues, etc.
>You do highlight a curiosity I've long had though, about what would
>happen if I try two connection types at once as you suggest.  The same
>would apply to any drive with both a USB and a Firewire connector.

>On Wed, Apr 06, 2011 at 11:15:38AM -0500, Bryan Schulz wrote:
>hi,

>i suspect you would overload the drive with double the voltage but...
>if you have the drive to experiment with destroying,
>get a usb/esata external enclosure as newer laptops have the new esata
>port then one computer could connect by regular usb and the other
>computer could connect thru the esata cable.

>Bryan Schulz

>----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Lee" <dgl at dlee.org>
>To: "NFB in Computer Science Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 10:02 AM
>Subject: [nfbcs] USB drive on two machines at the same time?


>>I'm not sure where best to ask this question, so besides actual
>>answers, I welcome pointers on where to send this one.  My excuse for
>>posting this here in the first place is that I need the device I'm
>>about to describe for scripting projects. :)
>>
>>I am looking for a USB drive, or better yet, a USB device that allows
>>a drive to be connected to it, that then allows the drive to be
>>plugged into the USB ports of two computers at the same time.  To each
>>computer, it would be a USB drive pretty much like any other.  I know
>>this issue is normally solved with a Network Appliance, but that is
>>not possible in my situation for security reasons.
>>
>>A specific example:  I want to plug this device into, say, a desktop
>>computer's USB port and a laptop's USB port at the same time, write
>>files to the drive from the laptop, and read them off the drive with
>>the desktop.  I'm even ok if the drive is mounted read/write by the
>>laptop but as read-only by the desktop.  (This would cover most
>>security issues I've encountered in my work, since most sites will let
>>you bring data into a machine but not write it back out of it.)  The
>>device must use USB connections, not Ethernet (Cat 5) connections.  As
>>a last resort if the two-USB idea doesn't exist, I could probably work
>>with something that allowed one USB connection and a simultaneous WiFi
>>connection, as long as the WiFi connection supports WPA2.
>>
>>I notice one technical detail that may present a problem:  The OS on
>>the desktop, in my above example, would somehow need to know not to
>>cache the drive data aggressively, even if it mounts the drive as a
>>read-only device, because the laptop could change the data at any
>>moment.
>>
>>Does such a device exist anywhere?
>>
>>-- 
>>Doug Lee                 dgl at dlee.org                http://www.dlee.org
>>SSB BART Group           doug.lee at ssbbartgroup.com
>>http://www.ssbbartgroup.com
>>"The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit
>>of it. You have to catch up with it yourself." --Benjamin Franklin
>>
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>-- 
>Doug Lee                 dgl at dlee.org                http://www.dlee.org
>SSB BART Group           doug.lee at ssbbartgroup.com   http://www.ssbbartgroup.com
>"Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you
>to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is
>not in vain." --Helen Keller

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