Making my hardrives wireless...

philjohns

Senior Member
Ok, the time is coming where my hardrives, graphics tablet, keyboard, printer ipod etc are dominating my usb ports on my imac - and im using an adapter (this is one thing that should be improved on macs - the amount of usb ports!)

I know that with the apple airport wireless routers I can ahve one usb item plugged into it and access it wirelessly, but I am also aware that I can be a wireless usb hub to plug into my present router?

The computer setup my house hold currently has:


Windows XP computer connected via ethernet to wireless router
Two Windows XP laptops and my Apple iMac connecting wirelessly to the router
two hardrives connected to my iMac I want to have accesbile on the network.

I know I could plug them into my windows computer and access them that way wirelessly but then I ahve to have the windows computer on to access them

Whats the deal with the usb port hubs that I can plug into my current router? OR have I got it wrong?

Thanks all in advance,

Phil Johns
 
I know quite a bit about PCs and Windows but not Mac's the Routers, as far as I'm aware the routers just let you connect a USB Hardrive like an external hdd to the router and that becomes accessible 24-7 unlike having a networked hdd on a pc which is only accessible when the pc is powered on. I would also imagine you could you the router a print server so the printer would be accessible 24-7 and again not when the pc is only on.

Essentially I think it's just a way of making a 'server' without all of the domain and active directory stuff only sharing a hard drive between the different pc's to share documents and media etc. A bit like the windows home server!

The moral of the story is don't buy a Mac :p

hope this helps

Chris
 
The moral of the story is don't buy a Mac

How very dare you! haha

It is something that appears so simple to me that infact is rather a difficult thing to come across!

Thanks for the help Chris.


Looks like im off to a computer shop/apple shop to investigate!

Any more advice greatly appreciated!
 
I had a similar probblem.

Got a 24" imac with the ports round the back - needed keyboard, external hd, printer, ipod dock and memory sticks to fit in.

I wnt out and spent £30 on a shiney new Belkin 7 Port usb hub - its quality.

Nice clean desktop. With spare ports.

Get one.
 
Thanks Ross.

Any chance you could give me a link to the exact one? Ive googled but there is a few around.

What do you plug it into then? and does it let you connect to your hardrives etc wirelessly across desktops?

Thanks,

Phil
 
Thanks croche.

Does anyone know the concept of how they work?

DO they plug into my router or my computer?
Will I be able to access them from both windows and mac computers?
Do they need their own seperate network or will they run on my normal wireless internet network?
 
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