Is there a product out there that could be plugged to an Ethernet port in a switch, and from there a USB Hub?

That is, I'd like to find a USB hub that could be directly connected to a LAN. So that, in example, one could plug a USB memory stick to it, and anyone connected to the LAN could be able to access it.

 

Yes: https://www.digi.com/products/netwo...ment/usb-connectivity/usb-over-ip/anywhereusb

Digi might be familiar, they have been in the networked serial port and multiport serial board business forever.

[EDIT: They aren't cheap, though. There might be someone selling something more... affordable.]

 

Is there a product out there that could be plugged to an Ethernet port in a switch, and from there a USB Hub?

That is, I'd like to find a USB hub that could be directly connected to a LAN. So that, in example, one could plug a USB memory stick to it, and anyone connected to the LAN could be able to access it.

No… Yes… you’d need a computer to execute the LAN protocols in order to control the hardware, establish a connection, transfer data and recognize the files or other content in the USB drive. I may have missed a step or two, but hopefully you get the point. There’s a whole lot to consider besides the hardware.

Edit: The product linked to by Yaakov provides these levels of LAN connection.

Thanks, @Yaakov , I wasn’t familiar with that product.

 

Yes: https://www.digi.com/products/netwo...ment/usb-connectivity/usb-over-ip/anywhereusb

Digi might be familiar, they have been in the networked serial port and multiport serial board business forever.

[EDIT: They aren't cheap, though. There might be someone selling something more... affordable.]

Yes, I'm quite familiar with Digikey ... and you're absolutely right, they ain't cheap!



OUCH!

Gonna keep looking for an alternative. Thanks for your help.

 

Here's a more affordable option: https://www.amazon.com/Silex-DS-510-Device-Server-Ports/dp/B00U9UDSH8/

The key search is "USB over IP" or "USB Server".

 

Yes, I'm quite familiar with Digikey ... and you're absolutely right, they ain't cheap!

View attachment 259231

OUCH!

Gonna keep looking for an alternative. Thanks for your help.

Not Digikey, "Digi". But... yeah, money.

 

Oh, and by the way, there are software solutions if you can use a computer and share its ports.

 

Allow me to clarify my intentions ... perhaps I've sinned of discourtesy by not telling my end goal from the very beginning.

Last Friday, my computer's hard drive crashed. Its heads fell off, literally. I know this because I took it to a lab specialized in recovering information, and they showed me the diagnostic reported by their equipment.

Thing is, last time I made a backup was about 4 weeks ago, and so I lost about a month's worth of work. But that's not all, financial and tax records were also lost. And some personal stuff of lesser importance.
This little misadventure is going to end up costing me a little over a thousand bucks. I know that because that's the price quoted by the lab for them to recover all my info .. Also, my fragile ego has been deeply hurt ... I should've known better and ran back ups every single day. I feel like an idiot.

Anyway, the main reason why I wasn't making backups as frequently as I should have is because I have a rule of having the back up disk physically connected to my desktop ONLY while a backup is being made. That is, I insist on NEVER EVER having the backup disk actively connected to my computer unless strictly necessary. So the process of setting things up and plugging the hard drive, and running the synch program is pretty annoying. I use a software called Beyond Compare, which is pretty good, btw.

A little over two weeks ago, my PC's power supply glitched and burned the motherboard. That time it only cost me a couple of hundred bucks to buy a new power supply and a new mother board and get things back up and running again. Neither the HD, nor the memory cards, nor my extremely valuable 6GB graphics card were hurt in the incident... But now this ... lucky me

So. What I want is to have an external disk installed somewhere else in my house (and not in the same room as my computer) and put together some sort of system that will routinely make backups of my house's three computers every night.

I already bought a pretty good 2TB Toshiba external hard drive for this purpose, and now I'm trying to decide how to set it up. A wireless USB hub is another option I'm looking into.

And BTW, my crashed disk is a pretty good brand, it's a 3TB Seagate. But I was told by the lab that lately they've been receiving this exact model from other customers suffering from the same problem.

​

 

I connected usb drives up to a thin client and shared on the local network.

 

I connected usb drives up to a thin client and shared on the local network.

Mind elaborating? ... my lingo regarding this sort of thing is that of a noobie. Yaakov helped me enormously by telling me the proper keywords to search for what I wanted.

 

Have you considered Cloud backups?

 

Have you considered Cloud backups?

I have ... and I do not like one bit uploading all of my personal and professional info and putting it into the hands of Big Data

 

Is there a product out there that could be plugged to an Ethernet port in a switch, and from there a USB Hub?

That is, I'd like to find a USB hub that could be directly connected to a LAN. So that, in example, one could plug a USB memory stick to it, and anyone connected to the LAN could be able to access it.

There is a pluggable USB LAN module. Does'nt that help?

 

How about an old ADSL MODEM that includes a USB port? These can just be used as Ethernet switches, and the USB port may be available.
And if you get one with WiFi, it can be configured as an extra access point.

 

Given this additional information my advice is to get a purpose built NAS (Network Attached Storage) device. I don‘t think this is an area to save money, these backups represent your work.

I am a big fan of, and use two, Synology NAS devices. They use RAID (our units have 5 bays and are running a variant of RAID 5 which protects against a drive failure, with autoresync on the fly). It offers a big range of functionality include supporting several protocols including SMB, AFP, NFS, and SFTP. It runs Linux, so you can also install a variety of packages to add functionality as you want.

It is possible to add drives on the fly, so you don’t have to populate fully from the outset but I recommend at least three drives to get a working RAID.

I can’t emphasize enough how well these work or how valuable the reliable ad recoverable storage is If you can afford it, seriously consider a Synology NAS.

This is the type of our devices (below), we have one older and one newer. We use WD Red NAS class drives.

https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS920+

 

Mind elaborating? ... my lingo regarding this sort of thing is that of a noobie. Yaakov helped me enormously by telling me the proper keywords to search for what I wanted.

Thin clients, basically a local terminal running an embedded operating system such as windows or Linux. The operating system hosts the sharing of the clients resources (such as USB connected devices) on the local network, either through sharing, or remote connect. Thin clients from previous years are plentiful as surplus.
This is basically as earlier suggested to just use another computer as the interface.

 

Mind elaborating? ... my lingo regarding this sort of thing is that of a noobie. Yaakov helped me enormously by telling me the proper keywords to search for what I wanted.

Search for "NAS", a network storage device. Basically you set up a dedicated machine on the local network that can be accessed all the time, and you can run your backups to it. There are "free" versions of NAS software out there (Linux based, you supply the PC), but they run like any other "black box" on your network. A NAS can have several disks, limited by your hardware, including RAID. On a gigabit network, backup speeds are reasonable.
There are also some home based routers that have a USB port that can share a drive over the network. Much more basic than a NAS, but still a network based disk drive, accessible to all on the home network. In some cases, you can even share it (with security) to the Internet, though I would never do that - hackers are smart people...