05-27-2008, 11:48 PM
I got one of these in the clearance bin at Office Depot a little over a month ago for $30: http://www.buy.com/prod/belkin-5-port-wi...52687.html
It works great, has software to install on Mac and Windows computers that allows you to connect and disconnect all devices (drives and printers) independently. In Mac OS X, it mounts the drive on your desktop just as if it was mounted directly to the USB port. I believe the software includes specific attach and detach times, though I'll have to check on that for sure. I can also test tonight whether you can mount a drive on two computers at once and access it from both computers simultaneously.
The best part is you don't have to pay the extra $$$ for a NAS-specific enclosure. Right now I've just got a bunch of regular USB drives attached to it that I offload certain projects to for storage, and since I can choose which drives to have attached and not, my desktop doesn't have to be littered with USB drives I'm not using.
~A
It works great, has software to install on Mac and Windows computers that allows you to connect and disconnect all devices (drives and printers) independently. In Mac OS X, it mounts the drive on your desktop just as if it was mounted directly to the USB port. I believe the software includes specific attach and detach times, though I'll have to check on that for sure. I can also test tonight whether you can mount a drive on two computers at once and access it from both computers simultaneously.
The best part is you don't have to pay the extra $$$ for a NAS-specific enclosure. Right now I've just got a bunch of regular USB drives attached to it that I offload certain projects to for storage, and since I can choose which drives to have attached and not, my desktop doesn't have to be littered with USB drives I'm not using.
~A