Question re: access to drive attached to TBD

[rpg51]

If I have a USB drive attached to my Thunderbolt Display and TBD is connected to my LAN, will the USB drive be available to a computer on the LAN even when the TBD is not connected to my laptop via thunderbolt cable? I think not - but unsure.

 

[waw74]

no, the ports aren't connected to each other, just your computer.

 

[rpg51]

Ok - so to have a hard disk avail for auto wireless back

up at night I need to either 1. connect a usb drive to a usb port on the router (which would mean a new router for me) or 2. to a usb port on a computer that is in the LAN and booted 24 hours a day or 3. connect an ethernet external drive ? Are those the main options?

Also, if I have an external drive connected to my network for back ups - can I run auto backups from any machine on the network to that one drive assuming it is big enough? Any problem if one machine is windows?

 

[Weaselboy]

up at night I need to either 1. connect a usb drive to a usb port on the router (which would mean a new router for me) or 2. to a usb port on a computer that is in the LAN and booted 24 hours a day or 3. connect an ethernet external drive ? Are those the main options?

Also, if I have an external drive connected to my network for back ups - can I run auto backups from any machine on the network to that one drive assuming it is big enough? Any problem if one machine is windows?

Those are pretty much your options, and yes OS X and Windows would both be able to use networked drives.

 

[rpg51]

I have several perfectly good usb

drives - one is plenty big enough for back ups for the forseeable future. I guess I am leaning toward upgrading my wireless router to something with a usb port for the back up drive and enough network ports to connect two computers and an att micro cell - so three ports. I assume I could expand with a switch if need be down the road, correct? Is this making sense?

edit - I forgot, I have a wired ethernet printer too - so 4 ports.

 

[Weaselboy]

drives - one is plenty big enough for back ups for the forseeable future. I guess I am leaning toward upgrading my wireless router to something with a usb port for the back up drive and enough network ports to connect two computers and an att micro cell - so three ports. I assume I could expand with a switch if need be down the road, correct? Is this making sense?

edit - I forgot, I have a wired ethernet printer too - so 4 ports.

That would work, and yes you can just add a switch later if you want. I have a Time Capsule setup with two wired devices attached directly to the Time Capsule and a 8 port switch feeding wired ethernet ports in the rest of the house.