External HD able to use PC/USB and Mac/FW SIMULTANEOUSLY?

belfast-bikerbelfast-biker
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Hi, I want o get a MyBook external HD with both FW and USB2 conections, mainly for backup and TV programme storage. I want to backup from the Mac using FW, and from the PC using USB2. I don't mind the drive having separate partitions for Mac and PC. (Tried a search here, but no definite answer could I find.)



1. Can I leave it plugged in to both machines?



2. Will it give me simultanous access?



3. What about simultaneous writes?





Many thanks for your help!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    smaxsmax Posts: 361member
    http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc....i=&p_topview=1



    A great hard drive though. I love mine.



    Also: be sure to use Firewire, not USB.
  • Reply 2 of 12
    imickimick Posts: 351member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by smax View Post


    http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc....i=&p_topview=1



    Also: be sure to use Firewire, not USB.



    Just out of curiousity, why not use USB?

    I've had troubles using a usb drive, but not with the FireWire drive.
  • Reply 3 of 12
    smaxsmax Posts: 361member
    Firewire has much faster sustained speeds. If you're going to be using a hard drive, chances are you're going to be backing up and moving or reading a lot of files. The extra speed is a nice thing.
  • Reply 4 of 12
    chuckerchucker Posts: 5,089member
    Neither USB nor FireWire offer the ability for simultaneous access. You'll have to use NAS for that.
  • Reply 5 of 12
    nofeernofeer Posts: 2,427member
    also with firewire you can boot from the backup drive can not with usb
  • Reply 6 of 12
    imickimick Posts: 351member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by NOFEER View Post


    also with firewire you can boot from the backup drive can not with usb



    Any recommendations? I'm currently using a 250gb Western Digital drive in an Adaptec ASC-200 usb/FW enclosure, that I'm using with SuperDuper to do my complete hd backup.



    I'd like to get another one to just store misc files.



    What's a good one?
  • Reply 7 of 12
    nofeernofeer Posts: 2,427member
    macworld had a review, i bought the iomega black series double or triple interface AND get superduper wow worked great





    what i want is apple to make a server for the home

    keep all stuff on their for the family, access it by the web or shared network, and then you can piggyback mirror storage and should be scalable. as time goes by, i'll have multiple iphoto and itunes libraries then i have to back all of them up one at a time. then i would or maybe could bootup from this as well. macworld also gives advice as to the size needed.



    i'm waiting for leopard and time machine to see what happens, i still backup to my iomega but it's time consuming moving around my laptops to the backup hd
  • Reply 8 of 12
    freudianfreudian Posts: 73member
    I have an external 250GB HDD and it has bot USB2.0 and FireWire400. My eMac only has USB1.1, but it has FireWire400.



    I want to plug the USB2.0 into my Windows based PC and the FireWire400 into the eMac 1GHz at the same time and not have disconnect one cable and connect the other.



    Can I do this w/o problems? (data corruption)



    It's all formatted as NTFS and I know that the Mac cannot write to NTFS that way. All I want to do is be able to READ the Ext. HDD from the Mac and read/write using the Windows PC.



    Anyone one know the answer or tried it? I don't wan to try it and cause data corruptions.



    Cheers.



    Andrew
  • Reply 9 of 12
    smaxsmax Posts: 361member
    At this point I don't think so. Each computer would want to treat the drive like it has it all to itself and the drive would get to many conflicting inputs and outputs.
  • Reply 10 of 12
    leonardleonard Posts: 528member
    If it's a normal external HD, it likely will mount on the first computer to access. The second computer won't mount the drive since it's actively mounted on another computer. The multiple connections are to give you options of how to connect it to one computer, not to connect it to multiple computers.



    Only network drives can be connected to more than one computer.



    If you want the two computers to share the drive, connect the HD to one computer, network the two computers with ethernet or wifi, and share it to the other... that's the proper way to share a drive.
  • Reply 11 of 12
    freudianfreudian Posts: 73member
    Leonard,



    OKay. Thanks for the info. That's how I have it setup now. I jus wish the eMac and my Laptop had Gigabit Ethernet *oh, and that my router had it too*. Only my PC has 1000mbps ethernet right now.
  • Reply 12 of 12
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,953member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by NOFEER View Post


    also with firewire you can boot from the backup drive can not with usb



    That's not true anymore, at least not for the Intel machines. I forget the details but it's the partitioning that matters.
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