Hi, I realize this forum might be "too advanced" for my question but I've been looking around on the internet and this forum seems to be the place where people with the knowledge to answer my question hang out. I've been looking for a standard solution to the following problem:
I would like to add a USB client port to a normal PC (mini-itx form factor) so that a USB host can access part of the drive of the PC as a mass storage device. I was wondering if anyone could give me advice about what approach to take. Is there a way to use the existing USB hardware currently on a typical mini-itx mainboard to accomplish this or would this require a large effort as far as development of both soft and hardware is concerned. Is there a standard solution available somewhere?

Thanks!

 

the PC by default, is a host. I'm not aware of any hard/software that provides a device port. I don't see that it would be difficult given the proper resources. Not knowing about the host devices implemented in any PC, I'm only going to guess that one would require a hardware plug in that would act as the device port. Software interfacing then would take care of command/access translations.

It would be interesting to hear why you choose USB over ethernet.

 

Any reason that an external USB drive will not work to solve your needs?

Tim S.

 

This is more or less what those USB transfer cables do. Maybe one of those would work for you?