Make NAS appear as a USB drive

My TV can record to USB-storage, which is quite common. What I would like was to record to my NAS instead, where there's plenty of room and recordings can be shared and managed better. So I'm looking for an adapter-thingy (hw/sw) that will make my NAS appear to the TV as a USB block storage device. Any ideas? Googling has turned up nothing.

Please note that this is the exact opposite of the very common scenario of making a USB device available as a networked drive. There are tons of solutions for that, so let me stress that I'm looking for the opposite: make my NAS appear as a physical USB drive that can plug straight into my TV, like so:

[NAS] ——— Ethernet ——— [adapter] ——— USB ——— [TV]

Richard Flamsholt

Posted 2010-11-26T22:54:38.527

Reputation: 221

The simplest solution would be to buy instead a usb stick. These go today up to 512 gb. – harrymc – 2015-02-16T07:07:51.597

2Another note on the bounty: answers that require buying an entire desktop PC to implement aren't particularly helpful either. Ideally I'd like a small, dedicated device for this. – detly – 2015-02-16T22:43:45.677

@detly: A usb stick fits exactly that requirement. – harrymc – 2015-02-18T21:13:45.087

2@harrymc I thought it was pretty clear that both I and the OP don't want to constantly, manually shuffle files across from one storage device to another. But if you know of a USB stick that can access an SMB share while providing access to it via the USB, post that as an answer. – detly – 2015-02-18T21:50:02.440

Usb sticks exist that are accessible over wifi as network disk storage, so accessible from the PC as an external disk, if that interests you. – harrymc – 2015-02-19T08:21:29.493

Have you found a good device, yet? I'm looking, too - and I'd prefer a device with cable bound LAN for better performance. – BlaM – 2011-09-01T16:12:06.663

Answers

I looked a bit further and the "Infinite USB Memory"-stick from Infinitec claims to do just this. Unfortunately it gets a pretty bad review from Engadget where it was reviewed yesterday (what an incredible coincidence, as I've been thinking about this for quite some time!). But while this particular product may not work very well it does actually offer the exact functionality I was looking for.

Richard Flamsholt

Posted 2010-11-26T22:54:38.527

Reputation: 221

That first link is broken. Does this device (or a similar one) still exist? – detly – 2015-04-27T00:18:22.067

"Infinite USB Memory"? Nice. Maybe the implementation is not good, but the concept can be used to create a better one. – Bobson – 2012-03-11T20:26:00.510

If your NAS is a Linux-based PC, maybe, just maybe you might, with a lot of work, get something like this PCI USB 2.0 Peripheral Controller to work. This PCI card adds a "peripheral side" USB port to your system, NOT a "host side" port. So the possibility is to turn your entire PC into a USB device connectible to another PC. I know Linux has support for "USB Gadgets" - with the proper programs running it would certainly seem possible.

If your NAS can expose Samba shares, you might be able to do something with a rooted Android phone. On my Droid, the SD card appears internally as /mnt/sdcard. Running Samba on it is certainly possible. I've never tried anything like mount -t cifs //192.168.X.X/mysambashare /mnt/sdcard/mysambashare and then tried to use the phone as a USB storage device ... If I have time to try it, I'll update.

LawrenceC

Posted 2010-11-26T22:54:38.527

Reputation: 63 487

A pity that is was never updated. An idea stays as that. – JackGrinningCat – 2019-02-25T18:05:29.870

Have you tried connecting the NAS as a mapped network drive (so it shows up with a drive letter (H: for example)) rather than trying to use it as a network share accessible by //address/folder?

I've actually just gone blank but I believe you can map a network drive by right clicking on my computer or my network (assuming this is windows), I forget which.

If you aren't on windows, do please update us so we can help further.

Thanks.

WoodE

Posted 2010-11-26T22:54:38.527

Reputation: 246

4Thanks for the suggestion, but the networked drive must appear as a USB-device to my TV so there's no pc involved. I should have made this clearer and have just added a crude illustration to the question. – Richard Flamsholt – 2010-11-26T23:25:20.827

My apologies. Got me on that one. – WoodE – 2010-11-26T23:30:40.090