Connecting external hardrive to wireless router?

walshs3

I was just wondering can this be done or is it possible. I have an external hardrive that contains all my music/films etc. I do use my laptop around the house but dont want to be carrying around and plugging in the external hardrive every time,i also dont have enough space nor do i want to store these files on my laptop either,so my question is, is there any way of connecting an external hardrive to a wireless router so i can access these files over the wireless network. The router is one of the eircom netopias,model number 2247-02 and does not have a usb port.

mathias

It can be done but not as straightforward as you may think. External storage with network server capability is called NAS and this involves some extra devices or circuitry to add the file serving functionality.

To get a standard drive to serve files over a network you need something like this , you connect the drive to this and then connect this to your router.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=307213

Your router provides the connection only , it can not read or write to an external disk ,there must be a device physically connected to the drive to do that , thats the issue here.

( by the way , the link is just an example of what you need , there are better makes , apparantly that particular one is not great ! )

walshs3

i see,thanks for the quick reply.

kmick

What you need is the following
1) A modem to connect to your broadband
2) A router to route your traffic with at least one ethernet connection (1 and 2 can be the same box)
3) A switch - allows you to connect a number of network devices (laptop, NAS, XBOX, Desktop in my case)
4) Network Attched Storage (NAS) like the one I have http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=331865

This is what my setup looks like

ST

Is the laptop your only PC?

If you also have a desktop, you could connect the External Hard-drive to that and set it up as a shared drive.

Another alternative would be to replace your router with one that allows you to connect an external hard drive to it.

walshs3

kmick wrote:

What you need is the following
1) A modem to connect to your broadband
2) A router to route your traffic with at least one ethernet connection (1 and 2 can be the same box)
3) A switch - allows you to connect a number of network devices (laptop, NAS, XBOX, Desktop in my case)
4) Network Attched Storage (NAS) like the one I have http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=331865

This is what my setup looks like

Your solution sounds a bit expensive for my taste but i appreciate your input. As im fairly clueless about this setup,i would like to know if the following changes might possibly work. First, if the router picking up my internet signal was a wireless one,could i do without the wireless part that is shown in this diagram. Also is this "Switch" like some sort of adapter that would allow an ethernet cable coming from the wireless modem to transfer information with say the usb/sata cable coming from the external hardrive or even connect it to a usb hub and would be happy days for my problem.

walshs3

ST wrote:

Is the laptop your only PC?

If you also have a desktop, you could connect the External Hard-drive to that and set it up as a shared drive.

Another alternative would be to replace your router with one that allows you to connect an external hard drive to it.

Thanks for the response. I do actually have a desktop in the house,was considering doing this also but would this mean sharing the whole drive or could i select certain folders to share around the network as i only want to mainly share my music. As for the router with a usb, didnt know such a thing existed,never even occured to me to think of this for some silly reason,any recommendations?

5uspect

There are wireless USB hubs coming on the market soon.
I'm not sure about range etc but it might be a cheap easy option.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/24/first_wireless_usb/

walshs3

Just had another thought hear about my wireless problem. Ive just seen they had in aldi/lidl a wireless dongle like a usb type thing. Would it be possible to just plug this onto the usb cable(as i have connectors that could make this possible) or would this wireless dongle need the likes of drivers to operate it?

LeperKing

kmick wrote:

What you need is the following
1) A modem to connect to your broadband
2) A router to route your traffic with at least one ethernet connection (1 and 2 can be the same box)
3) A switch - allows you to connect a number of network devices (laptop, NAS, XBOX, Desktop in my case)
4) Network Attched Storage (NAS) like the one I have http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=331865

This is what my setup looks like

This can all be done within one box (bar the adsl modem). http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=12&l2=43&l3=0&model=979&modelmenu=1

I have it, and am very happy with it. Especially when you add custom firmware.

LK

nilhg

The wireless dongle will need drivers so wont work for you.
One thing you need to consider is that almost all the NAS adapters (and certainly the NSLU2 and the DNS-323, I have both) run a version of Linux and will both need to format your USB HD to use a Linux filesystem (ext2 or 3), losing all the stuff you have on there already.

Both the NSLU and D-Link drive work really well once they are set up and running and would be much more economic than leaving a desktop running all day but you do need to plan your setup before you start. Incidently both allow you to have a mixture of public shared folders and private folders.

nilhg

LeperKing wrote:

This can all be done within one box (bar the adsl modem). http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=12&l2=43&l3=0&model=979&modelmenu=1

I have it, and am very happy with it. Especially when you add custom firmware.

LK

Interesting piece of kit, will it read NTFS or FAT formatted disks?

LeperKing

Unfortunatly it uses ReiserFS on internal disk. From http://wl500g.info/showthread.php?t=8037&highlight=external it looks the same for external drives. USB pen drives should be ok though.

LK

nilhg

Found this, apparently it can read from but not write to NTFS USB drives.

dub45

Has anyone used one of these?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,119071-page,1/article.html

kmick

LeperKing wrote:

This can all be done within one box (bar the adsl modem). http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=12&l2=43&l3=0&model=979&modelmenu=1
I have it, and am very happy with it. Especially when you add custom firmware.
LK

Very interesting piece of hardware - you can even publish a website from it. Might be worth a look for the OP.

The main advantage to my set up is that it is extendable. With a swtich you can add more devices. I can currently run a desktop, a laptop, a FON router (for making money), an XBOX, a 1Tb NAS box, another wireless access point, a network printer, an ftp server and an Itunes server.

By the way OP a network switch is very cheap. Porbably pick one up for less than 40 euro. You either go usb or ethernet my preference is ethernet but in your case a usb hub might work. You ask if the router was also a wireless access point would that work and the answer is yes. It still does not give you access to a shared harddrive though.

dub45 wrote:

Has anyone used one of these?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,119071-page,1/article.html

Have heard of it - seems good enough but speeds are poor (thats not really a biggie for home users though).

mr kr0nik

Apple do the Airport extreme. It has a USB interface that allows you to connect a USB hub with printers/drives off it and away you go. No need for a PC to share out the files.

It also has...

Three LAN ports and an uplink to your DSL router.
Firewall included
802.11b/g/n(draft)

Check it out at:
http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/irlstore.woa/wa/RSLID?mco=6C04E099&nplm=MB053

Its in the apple store at EUR179 but can be bought in the eircom/3 store in Henry Street for EUR159