Multiple PCs networked to single external HD?

  • Thread starter Thread starter mikedunny
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M

mikedunny

I have a 2.5TB RAID drive that has 2 firewire ports. Will I be able to
use a hub/port to network 2 PCs to share the hard drive?

Thanks.
Mike
 
I have a 2.5TB RAID drive that has 2 firewire ports. Will I be
able to use a hub/port to network 2 PCs to share the hard drive?
Click to expand...

You dont need a hub, just plug one PC into each firewire port on the drive.
 
Thanks for the reply. I was told that one was an 'upstream' port and
the other a 'downstream' port, so you can can't plug 2 into the back,
does that sound right??
 
Previously said:
Thanks for the reply. I was told that one was an 'upstream' port and
the other a 'downstream' port, so you can can't plug 2 into the back,
does that sound right??
Click to expand...

While Firewire hubs are possible, they are more complicated than
USB hubs. The normal firewire mode is "daisy-chain", so you
actually don't need a hub, but get two ports where one is towards
the host and one is towaqrds more devices.

Arno
 
Thanks for the reply. I was told that one was an 'upstream'
port and the other a 'downstream' port, so you can can't
plug 2 into the back, does that sound right??
Click to expand...

No, firewire is natively a daisychain system.

There are firewire hubs, but those are more for the devices where it
isnt mechanically practical to have two firewire ports like cameras etc.
 
(e-mail address removed) wrote in
I have a 2.5TB RAID drive that has 2 firewire ports. Will I be
able to use a hub/port to network 2 PCs to share the hard drive?
Click to expand...

Mike,

Your decription of the unit suggests it is equivalent to an external
disk drive unit. If so, I don't see how that would be shareable
between two PCs in the way you imply, irrespective of any
connectivity constraints of firewire.

Can you post the make/model details?
 
There will be no difference if you use a hub or just daisy-chain.
However, Windows and OS X use 1394 logon,
which allows only the first host to access the drive.
If you defeat the logon somehow, you risk data corruption.
 
I have a 2.5TB RAID drive that has 2 firewire ports. Will I be able to
use a hub/port to network 2 PCs to share the hard drive?

Thanks.
Mike
Click to expand...

Share as in having simultaneous read/write access from both machines?
No, you can't do that. If the two PCs are networked you can attach
the drive to one machine and share with the other via os.
 
Looks like its an external RAID array subsystem. Such a device is
intended for connection to one PC only. To achieve what you want to
do:
- connect the two PCs to an Ethernet switch**
- attach the RAID subsystem to one of the PCs, using Firewire or
USB2
- offer the RAID disk(s) for network sharing
- connect the other PC to the share(s)

** If you are using a broadband router, you may already have one of
these.

(e-mail address removed) wrote in
 
Previously said:
This is the model:
http://www.micronet.com/General/prodDisplay.asp?CatID=45&ProdID=407
Click to expand...
All I want to do is have both PCs be able to write to the hard drive.
I'm ripping wav files from CDs to store on the drive.
Click to expand...

It is not that simple. Even if both can access the disk, you need to
have a filesystem that can deal with two independent computers
accessing the same disk. This is very, very difficult to get right and
therefore not done in practice.

What is done instead is that the disk is accesed by a single computer
and the volumes are exported using a network filesystem, like NFS or
SMB FS (e.g. by Samba). NAS storage does it this way.

Even if your hardware could support simultaneous access (it can
not, only bus system I know that can is SCSI), your OS cannot
deal with it.

Arno
 
Arno Wagner said:
It is not that simple. Even if both can access the disk, you need to
have a filesystem that can deal with two independent computers
accessing the same disk.
Click to expand...
This is very, very difficult to get right and therefore not done in practice.
Click to expand...

Not usually on desktop PC's, no.
What is done instead is that the disk is accesed by a single computer
and the volumes are exported using a network filesystem, like NFS or
SMB FS (e.g. by Samba). NAS storage does it this way.
Click to expand...
Even if your hardware could support simultaneous access
Click to expand...

Supposedly you mean access by 2 hosts.
(it can not,
Click to expand...

Oh, why not?
(And no, not simultanious, as in 'at the same time', in 'parallel')
only bus system I know that can is SCSI),
Click to expand...

So you know little, babblemouth. No, it can't either.
Different accesses occur in sequence. What SCSI can do is assign
different ID's to the hostcontrollers so there is no conflict in ID
there and that these can act as Initiators as well as Targets.

Since you can build an IEEE-1394 network presumably this works
the same with FireWire.
your OS cannot deal with it.
Click to expand...

But an OS extension can.
Wanna explain the IEEE-1394 network, Babblebot?
 
I have a 2.5TB RAID drive that has 2 firewire ports. Will I be able to
use a hub/port to network 2 PCs to share the hard drive?
Click to expand...

If the PC are networked together just connect it to one PC and mark the
drive as shared. That works but can slow the PC to which it's connected. Not
a problem though if you just want to use the drive to back up the PC at
night.
 
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