Sharing a hard drive over a home network

[leestudd30]

Can anyone advise with this? My router has a usb socket but will only accept flash drives in fat32 format up to 8GB, so I cannot plug my 1TB drive into it. So I was wondering if one of these would help:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-TO-LAN-RJ ... 3ccee43b8f

It plugs into the lan socket on the router and would enable me to plug the usb cable of my hard drive into the router. I'm hoping that once connected I will be able to see the hard drive on the network and access it that way. Otherwise the only way to share it is through my laptop when its switched on.

[Pilch]

Seem like a good idea - I know there is more expensive ways around it on ebay, I've ordered a couple so will be able to see if they work - although it will only do drives that have dedicated power leads so 3.5" drives as opposed to 2.5" which are portable and take power off the PC.

Just need to get myself another switch to give me more connectability so I can plug this in, TV, and 2 or 3 other devices!

[rwb]

Wouldn't have thought that adaptor would work

The hard drive is trying to talk USB, but the router's ethernet socket is talking ethernet. To paraphrase: you can connect me and a Frenchman via telephone, but we can't communicate.

This is the requires adaptor http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/310171839184
But this might be a better solution http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/110957867373 (enclosure with the required network connection)

[Bailes1992]

I can't see that adaptor doing any good at all. I don't even understand what you'd use it for?
Maybe if you want to use a Male USB to Male USB lead to connect two devices together using an RJ45 port?

You need a proper file server or a small computer setup that can share the hard drive accross the network.

I have a 13 year old Dell Optiplex in the Atic running Windows 2000 Professional that connects a few hard drives and printers in my house.
I just pop on it using Remote desktop every few weeks to make sure everything is updated and working as it should.

This would suffice if you were to remove the hardrive out of it's current enclosure and into this one! (Providing it's a 3.5" Drive obiously).
http://www.ebuyer.com/391097-d-link-dns ... m=products

[leestudd30]

Looks like I will have to get one of those NAS caddies then!