Ethernet to USB Convertor for External Hard drive

[wUgamBinOs]

Hey everyone.

I'm going to get an external hard drive for my laptop as my music has taken up pretty much all of the disk space, but I have 0 USB ports left on my computer. And as it's not great to plug anything except a mouse or usb flash drive into a USB hub I want to get a hard drive with an ethernet interface (also meaning I'll have faster connection speeds).

So I was looking at the Network Attached Storage HDDs (I'm looking for something in the region of 500gb to a 1tb drive), but for the same capacity as a solely USB interface drive your going to be paying around £100 or $200 more.

And so I looked I devised this set up...

• Start with my laptop with an ethernet cable coming out, plugged into a ethernet to USB convertor, then that plugged into a female to female USB connector, then that plugged into a USB cable which is plugged into the (cheaper) USB interface HDD.

And so finally (!) my question is: will this above set up work?

One problem I have thought so far is that I will need to get a mains powered HDD not a USB powered one due to the ethernet port not supplying enough power (maybe?).

Thanks to whoever had the patience to read through all of that!

[alsenior]

as far as i can woirk out that will not work. the "ethernet to usb converter" is a usb ethernet adapter and so needs a host pc to work. a better solution would be to get a powered usb hub

[educatedfool]

If your laptop has a PCMCIA slot you could get an adaptor: Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

Other than that and the USB hub im not sure

[wUgamBinOs]

Awesome, thanks for both of your replies! That pretty much sorts then.

I don't suppose anyone knows of any reliable external hard drives of around 500gb to 1tb with a cooling fan, USB interface and mains powered? Scan, dabs and ebuyer seem to be very limited on USB HDDs with cooling fans.

[DDY]

What about USB over CAT5? These will work.

It's an adaptor which allows you to use network (CAT5) cables to extend USB.

[alsenior]

that still needs a usb port. all it does is change the wire from usb to cat5.

[colmo]

You wouldn't happen to have a Firewire port on your notebook, would you?

If you have a PCMCIA port, you can pick up a PCMCIA > SATA or Firewire adapter, and connect up external SATA drives in eSATA/Firewire enclosures. You can either use an out-of-the-box one, or buy a single or multi-bay 5.25" drive bay (with power supply), or even convert one from an old SCSI tower (I bought one off eBay a few years back with 8 SCSI CD-ROMS still in it for about £20).

Leading on from the DIY SCSI tower conversion, you can fit it out with a bridgeboard. Span have a selection of bridgeboards with almost every combination of USB, Firewire (400 and 800), eSATA and Ethernet connections. They also sell drive enclosures, though you can get them cheaper elsewhere. Multi-bay opens up the possibilities of RAID, too, though something like a Buffalo Drivestation Duo would be more convenient. With 750Gb drives for under £80 (Microdirect, Samsung 750Gb F1), though, DIY is tempting.

In terms of speed/bandwidth, the order is eSATA>Firewire800>Firewire400>USB2>Gigabit Ethernet>100baseTX Ethernet. Moving files of any size over a basic ethernet connection would be an exercise in frustration, the rest should do fine.

[DDY]

that still needs a usb port. all it does is change the wire from usb to cat5.

Ah, my bad. Didn't read the OPs post fully.

[colmo]

One problem I have thought so far is that I will need to get a mains powered HDD not a USB powered one due to the ethernet port not supplying enough power (maybe?).

Ethernet ports won't power anything, and a USB port will only power a 2.5" HDD, not a 3.5". Firewire ports can if they're the larger 6-pin kind (only Macs really bother with such a port), though all the Firewire enclosures I've used needed mains power anyway. eSATA external drives would also need mains power.

Having looked around, I see a lot of basic eSATA + USB2 external drive enclosures for under £20. Assuming your PCMCIA slot is free, eBay has loads of suitable adapters. Firewire is generally more expensive, but has the unique capability of daisy-chaining - once you fill the first drive, you can run another one off the back of it. Considering many of those PCMCIA adapter cards have 2 SATA or Firewire ports, that's hardly an issue.

[wUgamBinOs]

Wow thank you so much guys that's a massive help, there's too many options now! . This forum's great!