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General discussion

Network & USB storage (2in1)

Mar 7, 2007 11:32AM PST

Hello,
I am looking for a storage solution which can work as an USB & a network storage at the same time. It can be a ready-to-use NAS with USB or an enclosure for IDE or/and SATA HDD which support USB & Ethernet at the same time. The devices I did see can support network or USB but not both at the same time or does not have a reasonable price for a home user.
I need something reliable but the speed is not very important. 1 MB/sec is enough for me. As I know an internal 500GB hard-drive is below $150 now so I would like to have a complete solution for $200.
Can abybody advise me anything?
Thank you.
V.

Discussion is locked

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My storage. . .
Mar 7, 2007 8:37PM PST

is a home built PC running XP Home connected to my home network. It has 6 USB ports and is available on my LAN. It's also my web server running my web site. Nothing fancy, just a good home built. Since I do not need a lot of storage I only have a 60 Gig master drive and an 80 Gig "storage" drive.

You can spend a gazillion dollars on a dedicated server, or you can build your own for a few hundred.

Wayne

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So what?
Mar 7, 2007 10:14PM PST

I have 3 home built PCs. This is just because I got rid of 2 more recently.
The storage I need is supposed to be connected to my home theater since I have a DVD player with USB. And I would like the storage to be available on the LAN at the same time.

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So.
Mar 7, 2007 11:53PM PST

I take it that you are not open to discuss options?

If so I don't think I'll comment what I use. You might flame me.

Bob

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!
Mar 8, 2007 12:09AM PST

I am open to discuss options and I think I described what I need in details.

Thanks.

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File and printer sharing. . .
Mar 9, 2007 9:32AM PST

Should be all that is needed. Use one of your PCs, install a large HD, and enable F&PS. Connect the DVD player to a USB port. Use F&PS and a router. Complete your home LAN.

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?
Mar 9, 2007 10:42AM PST

What is F&PS?

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Sory, I got it.
Mar 9, 2007 11:02AM PST

I still don't understand how that can be an option. Probably I am missing something but how can I configure a computer with a shared drive to work as a USB-drive? DVD player has an "A" USB socket and works fine with flash drive and USB-HDD formatted with fat32. I have A-USB on the computer wich is not close to the playre BTW.
But if it was how can it be recognized as a USB-drive?

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(NT) I see what you're asking now, I don't know.
Mar 9, 2007 11:10AM PST
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Hint: Add one of those USB to USB cables.
Mar 9, 2007 10:15PM PST

That's all you need to add to complete the brew and create the solution.

Bob

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Thank you for a hint but I don't believe it will work
Mar 9, 2007 11:49PM PST

If you mean something like that
http://www.usb-ware.com/usb-2-usb-data-link-file-transfer-cable-uc250.htm
It can be used for data transfering between 2 computers. But it does not convert a PC to an external USB storage. Also to make it work special software must be installed on both computers. That software creates something like network bridge via USB. Unfortunately I cannot install software on the DVD-player. Sad.
The thing which could help me would be a device connected to the LAN and emulating a USB-drive. But I don't know is something like that available. At least I've never heard about that. That's why I think a USB-drive with LAN interface is an easiest solution. But as I told I cannot find one working with 2 interfaces simultaneously.

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"Unfortunately I cannot install software on the DVD-player"
Mar 10, 2007 12:07AM PST

Now that's new in your spec. So without a clear spec I don't see anyone that will guess what you are trying to do. We were close.

-> Bottomline. Go to the store, go to newegg.com and see if what you want is made. Yes? Buy it. No. Make it.

Bob

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That's what I am doing!
Mar 10, 2007 12:29AM PST

I did read specs for multiple USB-drives and enclosures on newegg.com, buy.com, pricegrabber, etc., visited some manufacturers' sites. But still no luck....
And now I am here hoping anybody can help me.

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We did.
Mar 10, 2007 12:38AM PST

But a new spec emerged and the solution is no more. I think a new complete spec is needed.

Bob

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Sorry, link is corrupted by the forum
Mar 10, 2007 1:29AM PST
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Not an answer. But what I've tried and tossed.
Mar 10, 2007 1:46AM PST

I think I see where you are going here. I wanted a player that could fetch from some other place so I could have a digital jukebox. My first solution was the Dlink Media Lounge. It almost worked. It's downfall was Dlink never revealing how to properly encode video for this box.

Next I used a full blown PC and http://www.mythtv.org/mythimages/menuiulius.png At the time MythTV was still getting fixed up. I may try it again but any day now the Apple TV will ship.

So this is what I'm considering next (Apple TV) and since I already have nice Wifi NAS units like the DSM-G600 we'll see how it all gets along together.

Happy hunting for your solution.

Bob

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One more way to have LAN integrated home theater
Mar 10, 2007 6:45AM PST
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I had one of those. It suffered from that same issue...
Mar 10, 2007 9:48AM PST

As the Dlink. They never revealed what encoding would make it work properly. The Dlink ALMOST worked. But even at my best guesses somewhere 10 minutes into the playback the video would stall, audio would keep going and at 11 minutes the video would pick up again.

I never found a good demo file to show it working. It sits back in it's box in case I ever find the answers in either firmware updates or another encoding.

-> There will be another reply to the top question explaining a technical reason why you can't connect the ethernet NAS and the USB port at the same time.

Bob

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"which support USB & Ethernet at the same time." = NEVER!!!
Mar 10, 2007 9:53AM PST

After a few days it finally occurred to me that I've been here before. Another fellow tinkerer found a box that claimed you could run the USB to 2 machines to share the hard disk. What they didn't reveal is that only a modified version of Linux could be used. Until you read the instructions.

-> Here's the bottom line. No USB host to said drive ever expects the hard disk directory contents to be changed underneath it. The file allocation system when Windows connects to the drive is expected (by Microsoft and just about any other OS) to be under the sole control of the machine that connected to it.

When one machine writes to the drive, the next machine has not a clue that the allocation table is now invalid and it writes to clusters it knows are free promptly trashing contents on the drive.

So there you have it. Why your product doesn't exist and never will.

Sorry I didn't remember this earlier.

Bob

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That's a bad news.
Mar 10, 2007 10:31PM PST

As for me I don't care of file allocation table since player is gonna have read-only access.

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I hope you see the issues now.
Mar 10, 2007 11:22PM PST

Even if some USB port was marked "read only" the host would still fail as the machine altering the drive could and will rewrite the directory contents. At first this doesn't sound too bad until you discover that directory entries can change cluster locations too. I'd rather not describe every scenario here but after a few you discover "this will never work" and therefore no product will ever be found to do this.

But we still found a solution to your first post but not with the product you noted later.

Bob