Two computers, one external hard drive

BobbyBox

BobbyBox

WING NUT!
10 October 2003
Arsenal
Hi,

I have a external hard drive plugged into a MAC laptop and I want to share that hard drive wirelessly to a PC laptop constantly.

I have the MAC hooked upto a TV in the front room and the PC on a tv in the bedroom.

I have XBMC on the MAC and PC and I want all my movies/tv series from the external hard drive from the MAC to be read wirlessly by the PC in the bedroom and for XBMC to update on both.....is this doable?

I was also thinking about buying two Raspberry PI's one in the bedroom and one in the front room to replace the laptops, again one will have the external Hard drive attached and the one in the bedroom will read wirleessly the hard drive folder from the one in the Front room.

I've looked up home networks etc, but it is confusing and I can't find one that explains if it is possible or not?

any help would be great :DD

I am crap with computers....
 
why don't you buy yourself a nas drive and stick all your data on it.

it will be accessible by any device on your network and is perfect for the likes of xbmc.
 
What if you run an FTP Server on one the computers and the other one accesses the FTP via a desktop shortcut, not sure how XMBC works but other media players and such would be able to access the files from the network location, in windows just right click and choose "add a network location" and enter in the FTP address details for example:

Code: 
Ftp://username:password@serveraddress.com:21/

I've done that on my home PC to share audio books so my wife can play them from either her home laptops or her work laptop, just use Filezilla server it's free and easy to use and has versions for Mac and PC depending on which computer you want to run the server from.
 
Bitter Rivals said:
why don't you buy yourself a nas drive and stick all your data on it.

it will be accessible by any device on your network and is perfect for the likes of xbmc.
Click to expand...

Are they simple to set up? I'm rubbish with computers. :PP

Placebo said:
What if you run an FTP Server on one the computers and the other one accesses the FTP via a desktop shortcut, not sure how XMBC works but other media players and such would be able to access the files from the network location, in windows just right click and choose "add a network location" and enter in the FTP address details for example:

Code: 
Ftp://username:password@serveraddress.com:21/

I've done that on my home PC to share audio books so my wife can play them from either her home laptops or her work laptop, just use Filezilla server it's free and easy to use and has versions for Mac and PC depending on which computer you want to run the server from.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure exactly how it works? but if it is free then it sounds good.

do you have to log in every time from the other computer? and is there a folder that points to the server on the other computer?

I think the important thing is XBMC scans a folder for all the files and updates when a new file is added.

With the FTP, will the files have to be physically downloaded onto the other computer before they are read? because I don't want to use double the storage, I only want to have everything stored on the Hard Drive?

I'm not sure if I am making sense? because I know the bare minimum about computers.#

EDIT: just downloaded filezilla on the MAC and I haven't got a clue what to do?!

looked for a guide but it keeps asking me to connect to a web site?

I don't know what I am doing....:CRY: ;))
 
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Do you have Skype/MSN or what not? I can talk you through it there ;)

And no you shouldn't need to download the whole file. One alternative would be to run a "Samba" server, same premise, one PC runs the server and the other one connect to a virtual drive.
 
Placebo said:
Do you have Skype/MSN or what not? I can talk you through it there ;)

And no you shouldn't need to download the whole file. One alternative would be to run a "Samba" server, same premise, one PC runs the server and the other one connect to a virtual drive.
Click to expand...

cheers mate, I think we are already connected on skype/messenger? but I will send you my details.

Bitter Rivals said:
If your not good with computers then a nas is perfect for this
Click to expand...

really? cool, I just did a bit of research. We were going to buy a 2tb hard drive anyway so it might be best just getting a NAS one anyway?

do you have any recommendations?

is this anygood? http://www.amazon.co.uk/WD-4TB-Clou...1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1403956786&sr=1-2
 
Bitter Rivals said:
If your not good with computers then a nas is perfect for this
Click to expand...
Even if you're good.
I bought one a year ago and never looked back since.

The only trouble I had when installing it was that it expected to get an IP address via DHCP while I don't have DHCP enabled (by choice) on my router.
Once enabled DHCP, I was able to find it and to assign to it a static IP address (but it's a matter of taste, I prefer static IPs over DHCP reservations based on MAC addresses but a reservation would do the same in this case), and it's been working flawlessly for over a year and counting. Still no DHCP here :D
 
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Thanks guys and for Placebo for talking me though it on Skype for the ftp.

it looks like the Mac is a dick and for some reason is hard to set a ftp server up on.

The mac is the main computer and what we currently have hooked to the TV with everything on, so this would have been the computer with the ftp on.

I set it all up easily on the PC just to see how to do it, but when trying with the mac it just seems too difficult and doesn't work!!

So as we were buying a hard drive anyway, I will probably just invest $60 more and get a NAS with more space along with it.

I will keep trying with the mac and ftp, but pretty soon, I will through it out of the window!
 
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