Two Macs plugged into one External Drive

EngProf · Nov 20, 2009, 08:24 AM

I'm running SL. I have a MBA, an iMac, and a LaCie external drive. I want to plug the MBA into the USB port on the external drive and the iMac into one of the Firewire 800 ports on the external drive. (On the LaCie, I have two backup partitions for each of the computers -- one for ™ backups and one for a CarbonCopy clone of the computers.) When I connect them this way, the iMac can see the drive, but the MBA can't. The MBA will see the drive only if I unplug the iMac from the drive.

Is there some sort of trick for getting both computers to see the drive at once? I don't care if they see all four partitions; I'd just like the MBA to be able to see "its" TM and CCC partitions on the LaCie and the iMac to see "its" partitions.

Thanks for the help.

steve-p · Nov 20, 2009, 08:51 AM

Most external drives only allow one connection at once, but some Lacie drives do allow multiple connections - yours may be one of them if it has more than one Firewire port. It depends on the chipset IIRC, but it's been a couple of years since we had one Lacie drive mounted on a pair of Linux servers simultaneously, so I forget now. I think it may only work with two or more Firewire connections, not USB.

old-wiz · Nov 20, 2009, 11:07 AM

I shudder at the thought of two comptuers trying to talk to one external drive at the same time. It's a huge risk for total corruption.

savoirfaire · Nov 20, 2009, 11:10 AM

For what you want to do, I think your best bet is to get an external drive with ethernet and hook it up to your router. That way, both computers will be able to read from or write to the drive without interfering with one another.

Angelo95210 · Nov 20, 2009, 11:14 AM

Nooooo I wouldn't play this game. Risky business. You might :

- Loose your data and burn your hard drive
- Provoke a shortcut on your computer

There are the worst cases obviously but I wouldn't do this.

EngProf · Nov 20, 2009, 09:27 PM

Thanks, folks. It really didn't occur to me that this was a bad idea. I suppose that I could simply connect the MBA to the drive via a connection through the iMac, but that would mean a sparsebundle backup which, I gather, entails a crippling of the TM functionality. Maybe I should just be a big boy and eject and unplug the drive from the iMac and plug in the MBA when I want to make a backup.

Anyway, thanks for the warning.

Nov 20, 2009, 08:24 AM	#1
EngProf macrumors newbie Join Date: Nov 2009	Two Macs plugged into one External Drive I'm running SL. I have a MBA, an iMac, and a LaCie external drive. I want to plug the MBA into the USB port on the external drive and the iMac into one of the Firewire 800 ports on the external drive. (On the LaCie, I have two backup partitions for each of the computers -- one for ™ backups and one for a CarbonCopy clone of the computers.) When I connect them this way, the iMac can see the drive, but the MBA can't. The MBA will see the drive only if I unplug the iMac from the drive. Is there some sort of trick for getting both computers to see the drive at once? I don't care if they see all four partitions; I'd just like the MBA to be able to see "its" TM and CCC partitions on the LaCie and the iMac to see "its" partitions. Thanks for the help.

Nov 20, 2009, 11:14 AM	#5
Angelo95210 macrumors 6502 Join Date: Jan 2009	Nooooo I wouldn't play this game. Risky business. You might : - Loose your data and burn your hard drive - Provoke a shortcut on your computer There are the worst cases obviously but I wouldn't do this. __________________ iMac Penryn \| MBP Yonah \| 10.6.2 \| PHP/MySQL \| CS3 \| FCE4

Nov 20, 2009, 09:27 PM	#6
EngProf Thread Starter macrumors newbie Join Date: Nov 2009	Oops Thanks, folks. It really didn't occur to me that this was a bad idea. I suppose that I could simply connect the MBA to the drive via a connection through the iMac, but that would mean a sparsebundle backup which, I gather, entails a crippling of the TM functionality. Maybe I should just be a big boy and eject and unplug the drive from the iMac and plug in the MBA when I want to make a backup. Anyway, thanks for the warning.

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Nov 20, 2009, 08:51 AM	#2
steve-p macrumors 6502 Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Newbury, UK	Most external drives only allow one connection at once, but some Lacie drives do allow multiple connections - yours may be one of them if it has more than one Firewire port. It depends on the chipset IIRC, but it's been a couple of years since we had one Lacie drive mounted on a pair of Linux servers simultaneously, so I forget now. I think it may only work with two or more Firewire connections, not USB.

Nov 20, 2009, 11:07 AM	#3
old-wiz macrumors 68020 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: West Suburban Boston Ma	I shudder at the thought of two comptuers trying to talk to one external drive at the same time. It's a huge risk for total corruption.

Nov 20, 2009, 11:10 AM	#4
savoirfaire macrumors regular Join Date: Nov 2003	For what you want to do, I think your best bet is to get an external drive with ethernet and hook it up to your router. That way, both computers will be able to read from or write to the drive without interfering with one another.