external USB drive/OS X

bill9000 · 10-09-2007, 05:41 PM

hi! first post here! I've got a question, I am hoping someone can help me with.

I am a photographer/artist, and I have 2 MacPro's with the 30" displays, and all is well... however, I have an external USB 1TB hard drive, and I need both computers to access it, I have it plugged USB into one, and the other connects via the network, (however, connecting over the network opening 300MB layered .psd files, means slow!!!!!!)

my question is: how can I get both machines to see the drive via usb? I have a usb hub, and bought cabling to connect both computers to it via usc, however, the 2nd computer wont mount the drive!!!!!!!

any help would be sooooo appreciated!

thanks

hayne · 10-09-2007, 05:53 PM

You can't connect a drive to more than one machine via USB. And in fact doing so will endanger the data on the drive if not the physical drive itself.
(The same is true of FireWire - you can't have a drive connected to two different machines via FireWire. What I suggest below is different.)

If you connect your two Macs with Ethernet, you should be able to get at least a nominal 100 Mbps and perhaps 1000 Mbps (Gigabit Ethernet).

Or use FireWire to connect the two machines and turn on IP-over-FireWire in the Network Preferences (i.e. add FireWire as a new entry in the "Port Configurations" on both machines and have this at the top of the ports list, above Ethernet and Airport)
Then your drive attached to one machine can be accessed via the FireWire connection.

bill9000 · 10-11-2007, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hayne


	You can't connect a drive to more than one machine via USB. And in fact doing so will endanger the data on the drive if not the physical drive itself. (The same is true of FireWire - you can't have a drive connected to two different machines via FireWire. What I suggest below is different.) If you connect your two Macs with Ethernet, you should be able to get at least a nominal 100 Mbps and perhaps 1000 Mbps (Gigabit Ethernet). Or use FireWire to connect the two machines and turn on IP-over-FireWire in the Network Preferences (i.e. add FireWire as a new entry in the "Port Configurations" on both machines and have this at the top of the ports list, above Ethernet and Airport) Then your drive attached to one machine can be accessed via the FireWire connection.

ok, thank you! - so, if I understand this correctly, I could connect the two machines via firewire, and esentially have firewire speed from the 2nd computer to the first's hard drives instead of ethernet speed? because that would work for me!

giskard22 · 10-11-2007, 03:40 PM

Yes, that's basically correct.

Just make sure to use a different subnet/IP range for the Firewire interfaces. If your ethernet network is using 192.168.1.x, use 192.168.200.x (or whatever) for Firewire.

BTW, OS 10.4 can behave erratically if you have lots of traffic going to regular Firewire devices and to Firewire networking at the same time. If you're going to do a Firewire network, don't also try to use Firewire-based hard drives all the time.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300742

10-09-2007, 05:41 PM	#1
bill9000 Prospect Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 2	external USB drive/OS X hi! first post here! I've got a question, I am hoping someone can help me with. I am a photographer/artist, and I have 2 MacPro's with the 30" displays, and all is well... however, I have an external USB 1TB hard drive, and I need both computers to access it, I have it plugged USB into one, and the other connects via the network, (however, connecting over the network opening 300MB layered .psd files, means slow!!!!!!) my question is: how can I get both machines to see the drive via usb? I have a usb hub, and bought cabling to connect both computers to it via usc, however, the 2nd computer wont mount the drive!!!!!!! any help would be sooooo appreciated! thanks

10-09-2007, 05:53 PM	#2
hayne Site Admin Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Montreal Posts: 31,956	You can't connect a drive to more than one machine via USB. And in fact doing so will endanger the data on the drive if not the physical drive itself. (The same is true of FireWire - you can't have a drive connected to two different machines via FireWire. What I suggest below is different.) If you connect your two Macs with Ethernet, you should be able to get at least a nominal 100 Mbps and perhaps 1000 Mbps (Gigabit Ethernet). Or use FireWire to connect the two machines and turn on IP-over-FireWire in the Network Preferences (i.e. add FireWire as a new entry in the "Port Configurations" on both machines and have this at the top of the ports list, above Ethernet and Airport) Then your drive attached to one machine can be accessed via the FireWire connection. __________________ hayne.net/macosx.html

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10-11-2007, 03:40 PM	#4
giskard22 Moderator Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 4,272	Yes, that's basically correct. Just make sure to use a different subnet/IP range for the Firewire interfaces. If your ethernet network is using 192.168.1.x, use 192.168.200.x (or whatever) for Firewire. BTW, OS 10.4 can behave erratically if you have lots of traffic going to regular Firewire devices and to Firewire networking at the same time. If you're going to do a Firewire network, don't also try to use Firewire-based hard drives all the time. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300742