Wireless storage?

Have a 100GB 3.5in drive/enclosure network storage wired to my notebook docking station via USB2. Looking to upgrade to a 400GB drive with wireless capability since I do much of my work away from the docking station.

My wireless network consists of a Dlink524 router, print server, and a couple older laptops with cardbus. Whats the best way to go about connecting the 400GB drive for wireless access?

 

Unless I'm misunderstanding something (not too hard for me to do ) it seems like you should simply connect the 400 gig to one of the other laptops on the wireless network.

 

Yea from there you should be able to share the drive and make it accessable to all users on the network. I have yet to see a wireless NAS, so i don't know it thats even an option.

 

The laptops move around and can't be "tied down" with an attached second hard drive. I found a dlink 624S router which has 2 USB ports for storage and/or printer. I think this is the ticket. This way both laptops (or anything else on my wireless lan) can access the storage.

 

Hmmm .. didn't know there was such an animal .... let us know if it works.

 

I have one, and so far have not been able to get it to work right. It works fine with my 1Gb Compact Flash Card, but not my 120 Gb Western Digital NTFS USB drive. Dlink assured me that it would before I bought it, but so far no dice. Also, the USB ports are for storage only, not printers.

 

oly/all, the DI624S router USB ports will only work with Fat32 drives according to Dlink tech support. NO WHERE does it say this on any of the documentation. Dlink tech admitted they are scrambling for a solution. I took it back since I didn't want to divide my 300GB drive into 10 Fat32 partitions.

 

So it's back to square one ... maybe another brand of router will be able to support an ntfs usb connected drive? Other than that, if you have the space, maybe you should buy a used desktop system with usb, to add to the network.

 

I contacted dLink before I bought a DI-624S and received the following:

And I'm gonna hold them to it.

 

good luck!

 

Waynet,

There's no need to limit your HDD to 30GB partitions. XP is fully capable of accessing a Fat32 HDD with partitions larger than 30GB. I formatted my 75GB IBM drive using FAT32 as one whole 75GB partition without any problems. I can't guarantee it's funtionality using the DLink router, but I think it should be fine.

You may also want to try a different router. I know Netgear has one with a couple USB ports on the back.

-Vb-

 

Venom,
Appreciate your input, however, I've seen contrasting opinions on this XP/Fat32 issue. Glad it worked out for you, but I've talked to others who were unable to get XP to work with large Fat32 partitions.

Anyway, during my experiments with the DI624S, I took a 30GB 3.5in hard drive from one of my retired desktops, reformatted it to Fat32, and still couldn't access it via the dlink router.

Reverted back to my previous config - external 300Gb drive connected to my laptop APR using USB2. I think I'll give this wireless storage technology some time to mature.

 

Thanx for the info. Saved me reformatting to find out. I bought mine from Newegg and can't return it so I'm in for the long haul I guess.

 

wow, glad i stumbled on this thread...

lately i've been thinking of doing similar with wireless storage, i figured, wouldn't it be cool to have staggered around your house, little drive enclosures, that have little lights on them, and have each of them a 120 gig HD or something like that, fill them with movies, then using bluetooth, and some program that i don't know if it exists or not, but hey, can't stop dreaming , anyways back on track, then using this program and some form of wireless headset or mic... just say "computer, play movie X" and then well, that's fairly simple to figure out eh? just the LCF of something like that would be cool, and not too difficult for a small apartment anyways...

now, the wireless storage, i found something that "may" work out alright, but sadly, i think it's limited to a 60 gig cap... i'm sure you could pop the HD out and swap it, but who knows.

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=14147&vpn=WL-HDD2.5&manufacture=ASUS

that one doesn't list a cap on HD size, being just a drive enclosure, "may" work out alright... but it only houses 2.5" drives... i'm not sure what the Dlink device is... from what i'm understanding it's a wireless version of a linksys device that connects external drives via USB into a network.

anyways, i'm thinking that we are just seeing the birth of this kind of technology... and as any other, and as mentioned before, probably a good idea to let it mature.

and i know that people are going to immediatly critisize the idea i put forth up above for the wireless HD's storing the movies, but my "reason" for, is to just have a little POS comp in the background, dedicated to being the movie "host". now i know it'd be easier, and more "reliable" to just give it a huge HD inside, and cheaper, but it wouldn't be able to get the Awe, of having the wireless **** around the house, and have it all interconnected... but hey, as i've said before, i'm mildly retarded.

greets from the north pole!!
Amadan

 

Some further research turned up the Buffalo Linkstation series of network storage where the drive is included with the package. Sizes vary from 120-300Gb drives with USB ports for additional storage.

Anyone with experience using this gadget?

 

Wayne,

There's a few manufacturers that design devices like this. It has an ethernet connector on the back of the unit which allows it to be connected to your network directly. You can connect it to your router via an RJ45 cable.

www.Ximeta.com is one of the manufacturers that have this product, as well as Maxtor I believe.

-Vb-