[nfbcs] USB drive on two machines at the same time?
Bryan Schulz
b.schulz at sbcglobal.net
Wed Apr 6 17:55:27 UTC 2011
hi,
you could get a a/b usb switch box for about $20 but that's not much
different than physically connecting the drive.
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 12:19 PM
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] USB drive on two machines at the same time?
> The problem I'm trying to solve is this: I frequently script at
> company and government locations that will not allow me to connect my
> laptop to the local network. Some sites don't allow write access to
> USB drives either. I develop scripts on my laptop much of the time
> because I have tools there for managing the process, but of course the
> scripts must be installed on the machine at the location where I'm
> working.
>
> So the two-USB-connector drive idea would work like this: I would
> write code on my laptop and run an installer from the same drive to
> install on the office machine. The same can of course be achieved
> without the extra USB connector just by moving the drive back and
> forth between machines, but in rapid-turnaround testing situations,
> which are frequent, that becomes much slower than my idea would be.
>
> On Wed, Apr 06, 2011 at 12:07:52PM -0500, Steve Jacobson wrote:
> 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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>
>
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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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>
>
>
>
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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
> "Innovation is hard to schedule." -- Dan Fylstra
>
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