External HDD for two laptops. Which one?

Dave Guy

Distinguished
Apr 26, 2010
23
0
18,510
Here's my set-up:

My wife and I each have a Toshiba laptop. I have a 1 TB WD external HDD connected to my computer.

I made the external HDD a shared drive so that my wife can access it through the wireless LAN.

Here's the problem: It's slow to load a 5 MB photo through a wireless network!

My proposed solution: Buy a new external HDD that has two USB outputs and connect both computers to it. Use my current external HDD as a backup (that I would store remotely in case of a fire or something like that).

Is that a good solution? Or should I buy a hub and connect the HDD and both laptops to it?

And which external HDD should I buy? A lot sell for <$100, but I'm not sure which ones are reliable.

Thanks!
 
To my knowledge, I do not believe there are any external drives with 2 usb ports. I could be wrong though, so maybe someone else can chime in who knows of any. Never the less, the more practical solution would be to get a hub and just rig up a mini network of sorts. It would probably be cheaper.

On a side note, what sort of wireless router do you have, i.e. N, G, or B standard? You can increase the access speed of the external drive by getting an N router. For example, I have an N router located at the other end of my house and I can still play music and such flawlessly to my laptop from my desktop.
 

Dave Guy

Distinguished
Apr 26, 2010
23
0
18,510
To my knowledge, I do not believe there are any external drives with 2 usb ports. I could be wrong though, so maybe someone else can chime in who knows of any. Never the less, the more practical solution would be to get a hub and just rig up a mini network of sorts. It would probably be cheaper.

Great, sounds like good advice. What kind of hub would you recommend? And I think I should buy another external HDD to serve as a backup (that I would keep in a remote location). Any recommendation for that? I think my main requirement is that it's 1TB and lasts a long time without crashing. :)

On a side note, what sort of wireless router do you have, i.e. N, G, or B standard? You can increase the access speed of the external drive by getting an N router. For example, I have an N router located at the other end of my house and I can still play music and such flawlessly to my laptop from my desktop.

I have a mi424wr from Verizon. Not sure if that's N, G, or B.

If I did have a faster router, how fast could the data transfer be?

Thanks for the reply!
 
The most affordable and decent hubs that I have used have been by Belkin- you can find them almost anywhere. As far as another external hard drive is concerned, I've had a Seagate FreeAgent drive for a few years now (1TB) and haven't had an issue with it. Some may disagree, but I've found it reliable. In regard to the wireless standard, I believe that wireless N routers have speeds in the range of 150Mbps to 300Mbps (depending on the brand and how much you spend, i.e. some are meant for gaming, etc...).