Access External Hard Drives Simultaneously - iMac and Dell Laptop?

[Jenny]

Hi guys!

I just bought an iMAC! (20” Screen). Pretty excited!


I presently have:

- 4 External Hard Drives (formatted to FAT32)
- 1 Dell Laptop


-- How can I have both my Dell Laptop and iMac access those External Drives at the same time?



Thanks for reading – appreciated!


Jenny

[JohnnyMalaria]

The only way I am aware of is to have the four drives connected to a third computer (or one of your existing ones - but I don't know how easily Macs and Windows PCs can share drives between each other) and have that computer share the drives. A 100Mbps network connection would probably suffice for data rates associated with DV and HDV.

I'd be very surprised if anything exists that lets you hook up a single drive to more than one computer simultaneously. Such a device would have to broker access to the drive to ensure that all the read/write operations occur correctly. (This is what the third computer would do, or someother form of networked disk controller).

If you simply want to avoid having to repeatedly connect/disconnect the drives, you could probably get some kind of USB switch - but at any given time, only one computer would have access and switching from one to the other could create all kinds of problems with plug-and-play, loss of data etc.....

[live4ever]

I'd say get a Firewire/USB hub connect all 4 drives to the iMac get SharePoints and share the drives with Samba.

http://www.hornware.com/sharepoints/

[rumplestiltskin]

You won't need SharePoints. Connect to the Mac using Personal File Sharing (turn it and the Windows File Sharing checkbox on in the Sharing System Preference). If you log into the Mac (from the Dell) using the Admin account (your account on your Mac is Admin-level by default), you'll see all of the drives whether they're formatted as FAT32 or HFS+.

FAT32 has file naming limitations.

[Jenny]

Hey guys!

Thanks for responses - it's appreciated!

rumplestiltskin
You won't need SharePoints. Connect to the Mac using Personal File Sharing (turn it and the Windows File Sharing checkbox on in the Sharing System Preference). If you log into the Mac (from the Dell) using the Admin account (your account on your Mac is Admin-level by default), you'll see all of the drives whether they're formatted as FAT32 or HFS+.

FAT32 has file naming limitations.

Rumple...one thing...how do I log in to my MAC via my Dell...? Like, what kind of hookup do I need?
Because right now, my dell is hooked up to a USB 7-PORT HUB and from there I am connected to my external drives.


FAT32
My friend told me that Apple's only recognize the FAT32 format, rather than the NTFS.


Please respond! I need heeeellllpp! eeeeekkkk!


Thanks

Jenny

[terryj]

Jenny,
All the computers ( the mac and the Dell)
should be on the same network in your home correct?
( sorry, reading back I never saw an answer as to your home network)

Meaning they all have an ethernet cable coming out of the back
of them plugged into a router which is then plugged into a
DSL or Cable modem?

If so, then follow these instructions on this page.
Connecting a PC via Windows XP to a Mac

[rumplestiltskin]

terryj's answer about Ethernet connectivity is correct. USB is only for connecting peripherals to the "main" device (in this case, your Dell).

Once you have the Mac and Dell connected via Ethernet, note the IP address of the Mac because you'll need that to connect to it from the Dell. If I remember correctly, the path to your Mac (from the Dell) should look something like this:

\\192.168.0.100\jenny

(assuming your Mac's IP address is 192.168.0.100 and your Home folder is named "jenny") Provide your username and password when prompted.

I may not have that exactly correct because I haven't needed to connect to a PC in this manner for some time (having adopted Parallels for all my PC requirements). I'll ask that others who are reading this jump in and correct my post if necessary.

[terryj]

If windows sharing is enabled properly on the Mac,
as per your post Rumple,
and she has both on the same subnet in her home Ethernet
( the only case against having them on the same subnet, would
be for example, if one was a Server hosting files out)
then she could follow from there the rest of the instructions
on the link I provided.
It's how I connect to share iTunes downloads between my Dual Mac and my wife's HP laptop.

Now if she's not running XP, that's a whole 'nother ball o' wax...

[Jenny]

Hey guys!


Thanks for response!

It's appreciated!


Ok, I'm gonna try to understand some things here:


First, I totally, forgot, I need to get a Router, I don't know what I was thinking.
My first question, can I get a Switch?

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFS10061457&catid=21103#




Ok, 2) Are you guys saying that if I get a router/switch is that all I need if I want to see the external harddrives? Because overall, that's all I REALLY care about.

I don't need to access the Dell that much, but the External's YES!


Also, I am using XP.



Let me know when you get the chance guys, and thanks again!



Jenny

[rumplestiltskin]

If you're not connecting to the Internet via Ethernet, then an Ethernet switch is all you need. Some ISPs don't like you to have multiple devices connecting to "their" network (because they have to hand out IPs for all and IPs cost $$) so a router is the answer. This will provide a pretty decent firewall so all the nasties on the Internet stay out of your intranet. Your router connects from the WAN port to the cable modem or dsl modem, then your computers connect to the LAN ports (and that's a switch, BTW).

Another possibility (as you are running XP on your Dell): MacDrive software will allow you to plug your Mac's externals into your Dell and you may read/write to your heart's content (but your Mac is not connected at that time). When you're done, "remove" the devices using that little thingy in the system tray, unplug the drives, and reconnect them to your Mac. Works great.

[RipTasticMate]

What about a NAS Drive,
http://safecom.cn/code/sub/category.asp?prdid=403&subcatid=48
You will need a network switch also, but its well worth it.

[ssj2_goha]

Personally i would use the new airport extreme. you can have a wireless network, network shared hard rives and network shared printers. but hey thats just my two cents.

[rumplestiltskin]

NAS drives (ones that you can afford) are pretty darn slow. Apple's (the new APE) is probably the best for your use (if you must go in this direction) as you may use drives formatted as HFS+ (and not Fat32 or that squirrely Linux EXT3); you may keep your file naming habits the same.

Beware the cheap Dlink DM600 NAS; it's a flustercluck of bad hardware and software that, at best, is unreliable. I returned two of them and never bought a third.

[Slydude]

Everyone elso has touched on network sharing. I would like to clarify something that your friend said. If one of those drives were directly coonnected to the Mac the Mac can read and write to FAT 32 volumes. Recent versions of OS X (I believe 10.3 and later) write to FAT 32 drives and read but not write to NTFS. drives.

Over a network I don't think the Mac cares whether the drive is NTFS oor not. This Apple article may clarify things a bit.

[ssj2_goha]

Well you basically have 3 solutions.

1. Connect drives to iMac and use windows sharing.
2. Connect to Dell and make it a shared drive.
3. Use a network device to share to both computers.

with each there are downsides.

1.+ 2. both computers have to be on for you to access the drives.
3. more hardware thus more $ spent and depending on the hardware more headaches.

best solution? Well that really depends on what you want and what you do with your setup.

<edit>
Personally I would go with one of two setup. Seeing as the iMac is the desktop i would hook the drives up to it and share them through that. (if the windows computer was the tower i would say share the drives with that.) The reason i say this is because it's a desktop so leaving it on won't hurt it at all. The second "solution" is getting a Airport extreme and share all 4 drives though that. I just got mine and the setup took like 2 min and I was ready to go. The reason I say this is because you get the use of the drives you already have plus you get the added bonus of an 802.11N base station so if you get a computer that has a 802.11N card in it you can use the full speed. I don't know if any other device exist like the airport extreme that is a base station that allows you to share printers and hard drives but if there is that would work too.

[rumplestiltskin]

Everyone elso has touched on network sharing. I would like to clarify something that your friend said. If one of those drives were directly coonnected to the Mac the Mac can read and write to FAT 32 volumes. Recent versions of OS X (I believe 10.3 and later) write to FAT 32 drives and read but not write to NTFS. drives.

Over a network I don't think the Mac cares whether the drive is NTFS oor not. This Apple article may clarify things a bit.

Essentially, this is true; however, FAT32 has file naming restrictions so, unless your Mac file is named properly, it will fail to copy to the FAT32 volume.

NTFS is read-only unless it's a shared drive on a PC to which the Mac connects over the network. NTFS has fewer file naming restrictions.