Sharing USB Drive

Hi, I'd like to be able to connect my external drive to my TV via USB and to my home network via ethernet. Is there a device that will allow this? Thanks.

i'm assuming you want both connected at the same time, and could be way off the mark with my comments below but.. not as far as i'm aware, you can only connect it to one device at a time, so thats either to your tv or to a pc/router where it could be shared. i use a duo dock for my external hard drive(just plug any internal 2.5/3.5 sata drive into it), so i use the usb connection when connecting it to a tv usb port and the esata connection on it when connecting it to my pc(faster data transfers), where it could then be accessed by all my pc's, but am pretty sure(haven't tried, tv's at my parents house) that i couldn't connect it to both my pc and tv and be able to access it from both. i do know i can't connect it to 2 pc's at the same time 1 by usb and 1 by esata tho. there are some ethernet external hard drives out there that will connect direct to a router for file sharing but i have no experience with them, even so i still don't think you'd be able to connect them to the usb port on a tv and be able to access them at the same time from a pc.

Hi Terry, Thanks for replying. I don't necessarily need to access them both at the same time. What I would like to do is basically use the drive as media storage/playback device that I can transfer files too and from my PC. I know there is a device that allows this in principle but you have to create 2 partitions and you can only access one from USB and the other from ethernet, this won't be of any use. I suppose I can just buy a dedicated media server and play through HDMI instead of USB but I was hoping to find a simpler solution that allows me to play off the TV. If anyone else has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Thanks. Fab.

ok, so you don't want them connected at the same time, is there a reason why you can't just move the drive from tv to pc(like i do) whenever you want to add more content?

I was hoping to find a simpler solution that allows me to play off the TV.

not sure what you meant by this either, play off the tv?

anyway back to what i think you want..

there are routers out there that have built in usb ports(some can only be used for printers, so check specs) that allow external hard drives to be plugged into them so they can be accessed by any pc's on the home network,

also there are an assortment of wireless usb hubs out there,

no experience with either but both should give you what i think your looking for.

example of a wifi usb hub:- http://reviews.cnet.com/hubs/belkin-networ…tml#reviewPage1
usb server:- http://www.dixons.co.uk/gbuk/belkin-home-b…qr&istBid=t

example of a router with usb external hard drive sharing capability:- http://reviews.cnet.com/routers/linksys-wr…ody#reviewPage1

but I was hoping to find a simpler solution that allows me to play off the TV.

I'm not 100% quite sure what you are trying to achieve here? But I think I have something similar set up, let me share this with you as its an interesting post.

Here is my setup - 1 wireless router, 1 laptop and 1 PS3. I have them all networked up and the beauty about the ps3 is that it will play all my media off my laptop, I can store files on my PS3, stream, transfer and much more, there is some excellent software which really makes this process simple, I would Google for this as I cannot post the link.

Even better you can plug an external hard drive in to either the PS3 or the laptop, access it and play your media through that too.

Reasons I do this are, I have nice TV and surround sound so playing my music off my laptop and films from my laptop sound great.

As you can see the PS3 bridges the gap here and makes it all possible, this might not be what you are wanting to achieve but I thought I would share it with you.

Also this is a little advanced and off topic but you can actually dual boot the ps3 with a linux system which then gives you an online media center that is directly plugged into your TV all the time.

Hi Terry, Thanks again for replying. My TV has a USB port which allows me to play music and video files directly from a USB drive. I would like to know if there is currently available, a device that will allow me to connect my USB drive to it and share the content via a USB output to my TV but also allow me to connect it to my home network via ethernet so that I can transfer files to and from the USB drive. From your responses so far and from the lack of other responses I am guessing that no suce device exists. The Belkin device you metioned is pretty good but does not have a USB out feature.

but I was hoping to find a simpler solution that allows me to play off the TV.

I'm not 100% quite sure what you are trying to achieve here? But I think I have something similar set up, let me share this with you as its an interesting post.

Here is my setup - 1 wireless router, 1 laptop and 1 PS3. I have them all networked up and the beauty about the ps3 is that it will play all my media off my laptop, I can store files on my PS3, stream, transfer and much more, there is some excellent software which really makes this process simple, I would Google for this as I cannot post the link.

Even better you can plug an external hard drive in to either the PS3 or the laptop, access it and play your media through that too.

Reasons I do this are, I have nice TV and surround sound so playing my music off my laptop and films from my laptop sound great.

As you can see the PS3 bridges the gap here and makes it all possible, this might not be what you are wanting to achieve but I thought I would share it with you.

Also this is a little advanced and off topic but you can actually dual boot the ps3 with a linux system which then gives you an online media center that is directly plugged into your TV all the time.

Hi pl4f0rd,

Your idea is pretty much what I want to do but I was looking for something a bit cheaper. I know the PS3 is a great device for many things as well as gaming but I think it will be overkill for what I need. I may end up getting one though as it does also play BluRay movies. I'll keep looking for a cheaper solution until I decide if the get the PS3 or not.

On your last point, I have read that Sony have blocked the PS3 from installing Linux now.

Thanks for your input.

but I was hoping to find a simpler solution that allows me to play off the TV.

I'm not 100% quite sure what you are trying to achieve here? But I think I have something similar set up, let me share this with you as its an interesting post.

Here is my setup - 1 wireless router, 1 laptop and 1 PS3. I have them all networked up and the beauty about the ps3 is that it will play all my media off my laptop, I can store files on my PS3, stream, transfer and much more, there is some excellent software which really makes this process simple, I would Google for this as I cannot post the link.

Even better you can plug an external hard drive in to either the PS3 or the laptop, access it and play your media through that too.

Reasons I do this are, I have nice TV and surround sound so playing my music off my laptop and films from my laptop sound great.

As you can see the PS3 bridges the gap here and makes it all possible, this might not be what you are wanting to achieve but I thought I would share it with you.

Also this is a little advanced and off topic but you can actually dual boot the ps3 with a linux system which then gives you an online media center that is directly plugged into your TV all the time.

Hi pl4f0rd,

Your idea is pretty much what I want to do but I was looking for something a bit cheaper. I know the PS3 is a great device for many things as well as gaming but I think it will be overkill for what I need. I may end up getting one though as it does also play BluRay movies. I'll keep looking for a cheaper solution until I decide if the get the PS3 or not.

On your last point, I have read that Sony have blocked the PS3 from installing Linux now.

Thanks for your input.

I searched around for ages and had no look so settled on the PS3, it is an expensive option but you can pick the older PS3's relatively cheap these days.

Yes they have stopped people installing Linux and they have also patched the PS3 jailbreak too, however the installation of Linux is still very doable, however due to the board rules that cannot be discussed here.

If you find something please let me know, have you tried Maplins? Sometimes they have some odd gadgets

Hi Terry,

Thanks again for replying. My TV has a USB port which allows me to play music and video files directly from a USB drive. I would like to know if there is currently available, a device that will allow me to connect my USB drive to it and share the content via a USB output to my TV but also allow me to connect it to my home network via ethernet so that I can transfer files to and from the USB drive. From your responses so far and from the lack of other responses I am guessing that no suce device exists.

The Belkin device you metioned is pretty good but does not have a USB out feature.

so you do want to connect it to 2 devices at the same time,
sorry no i don't know of any way you could do that.

you could get a usb switch and connect one end to the tv and one end to a router or wifi hub but again you would have to manually switch it over to each connection depending on what you wanted to do, watch from it or have access to it from a pc.

example of a switch :- http://www.usbnews.net/news/reviewusbgear2portswitch.htm

my personal setup is something like pl4f0rd, but no ps3
i have a dedicated pc with tv tuners installed running pvr software(usually called a htpc) connected to my tv and router,
this records my tv programs and holds all my media data files for serving to other pc's on the network.
so with my setup i can watch/listen to everything on the tv or on any pc in the home all at the same time.

the only other thing i can think of that might do what you want, is if you left the usb drive connected to your pc and used a video sender to connect to the tv, this plays any content on the tv that is being played on the pc, but means you won't be able to use the pc for anything else at the time.

examples of video senders :- http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module…99&T=Module

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module…22&T=Module