Can't share a HDD through a router

[24fps]

Hi all,

I recently purchased a new routeur, D-Link's DIR-825. I am quite happy with it's performance so far, the main reason I bought this model was that it has a USB port so that I could use a HDD as a network.

I installed the "Shareport" utility provided by D-Link and yesterday I finally got around to plug my HDD into the routeur. Things went smoothly and I was able to "connect" to the drive from my home computer.

I then turn on my laptop, which is my work computer, and tried to connect to the drive. Shareport told me that it was already connected and needed to be disconnected.

I mean the whole idea behind me buying a routeur with a USB port was to have a hard drive that would serve as a network backup that could be accessed by both computers at any given time...

Besides, if only one computer can be connected to it at a time that's not what I call sharing, the "Shareport" utility should have a different name then.

Now is that inherent to this type of setup or is it simply a show of the software limited capabilities?

Thanks,

Phil

 

[jamesgangnc]

If you share a folder on your home computer does your work computer see it? If not then your work computer and your home computer probably believe they are on two different networks.

 

[24fps]

Oh yes I can share folders between my computers, no problem there.

Why should I have to share this drive from one computer to the other...doesn't that defeat the purpose of plugging it in the routeur in the first place?

I thought that the idea was to have a centralized drive that can be access from both computers independently whether one is powered on while the other is not and vice-versa...Were my expectations wrong or can this be achieved?

Thanks,

Phil

 

[jamesgangnc]

I agree, it should do what you want. What about a workaround, use shareport to mount it on the home pc and then on your home pc set it as shared read/write for the network. See if maybe that will work. You would have to leave the home computer on but I usually do that anyway. Just set the monitor and local drives to turn off after an idle period.