I have excel data I download from the internet on a regular basis. I use those data as a source book for my reference books, and I want to be able to retrieve the data along a single path from my two laptops and PC and eventually tablet. Any recommendations for a moderately cheap external hard drive that is good for network sharing? As far as size, I'm thinking 500 GB would be good enough.
If you install dropbox and add files to it from anywhere, it will update on that hard drive if you map it, too.
Not sure if this would be cheaper but check to see if your wireless router has a USB port on the back of it? I have a normal external hard drive (with no networking capabilities) and that works great for me. Have it all mapped across my network.
My price range is $70-$100. I have used a USB flash memory stick for the past months plus a public folder, but I do not have a server (a computer I keep on all the time). I will look more into Dropbox to see what kind of features it offers.
What do you mean by multiple locations? It's just a cloud network, so file is available from anywhere anytime. I use Box.com Since they gave me a free 50gb account.
Do I have to allow Dropbox to save to their server or can it be used as a macro to save across my network only? Thanks.
You upload the files to their server. Then it is accessible, and editable from there. Anything you want to use to access the file has to be connected to the internet. If you just want locally, there are a number of network drives from seagate and westerndigital. Or, as another poster said lots of routers nowadays have a USB for an external hdd to connect to it. I have a Seagate Blackarmor NAS 110.
My Asus Wireless-N has no USB but the Comcast router/modem I have has a USB port. However I would rather have the network mapped through my router, and it is not that I do not trust Dropbox (or have data I don't want to share), I just prefer having things run through my network. I will look into seagate and westerndigital, they seem more pricey but it is what I am after. Thanks.
