Serve up PC hard drive as USB mass storage

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Is there a software package available that can serve up a hard-drive internal to a PC and make it available over USB to other USB Master nodes as mass storage?

Ex: take your C: or /dev/hda drive on a PC (let's call the computer PC-A), and run a driver program which makes your C: or /dev/hda drive available to external devices as USB mass storage. When you'd hook up another PC (PC-B) to PC-A via USB, it would detect a USB mass storage device, which is C: or /dev/hda on PC-A.

Is this even possible?

EDIT: I know that there are other ways of making data on a drive available between two different computers (eg. putting PC-A's hdd in a USB-drive-enclosure, or having PC-A make the hdd available via a network share). But I'd like to know if the method that I describe above is even technically possible.

J. Polfer

Posted 2009-09-15T20:57:27.723

Reputation: 2 234

It should be possible, the TouchBook basically does this. Maybe ask on the AlwaysInnovating forums: http://alwaysinnovating.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=8

– he_the_great – 2009-09-15T21:39:28.777

See my answer to this question: http://superuser.com/questions/427092/how-to-turn-a-folder-into-usb-drive-mass-storage/427107#comment490470_427107

– LawrenceC – 2012-05-22T02:31:48.737

Answers

2

No.

If you use a normal cable, the hosts will both try to provide power over the usb cable causing a short with the end result ranging from fried usb ports to dead motherboards. You need to buy a special USB to USB transfer cable with a controller somewhere between the jacks.

Greg Buehler

Posted 2009-09-15T20:57:27.723

Reputation: 1 150

1

The two better ways to approach this would be:

  1. Get an external enclosure for the hard drive (http://www.newegg.com)
  2. Share the drive as a network drive for other machines to use

Troggy

Posted 2009-09-15T20:57:27.723

Reputation: 10 191

Asked: 2009-09-15T20:57:27.723

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Active: 2010-03-18T13:04:39.433