How to wirelessly access USB devices using a network USB hub
Posted on November 14, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Make sure to read other posts from the Wireless Tips series!
- How to connect two computers or laptops wirelessly
- How to wirelessly access USB devices using a network USB hub
- How to disable service set identifier (SSID) broadcasting on your wireless router
- How to troubleshoot your Windows XP wireless network connection problems
- Wireless Tips – Does your wireless router keep disconnecting or dropping the connection?
Can you even count how many USB devices you currently have? Probably a USB card reader for your camera and phone, a USB hard drive, a USB flash drive, a USB printer, a USB scanner, and that’s not even including devices like iPods, media players, etc. Most computers don’t even have enough USB ports to handle the vast arsenal of USB devices most people own.
If you’re having this issue in your house or if you would simply like to setup a USB printer in one room and be able to print to it from anywhere else in the house, you might want to check out buying a network USB hub.
You’ve probably heard of a USB hub before as that’s what most people have to use once they run out of USB ports on their computers. Plug in the hub into any free USB port and now you’re working with an extra 2, 4, or however many ports are on the hub.
A network USB hub will have two types of ports: one will be a network port that you will connect to your wireless router and the rest of the ports will be USB ports where you can connect the devices that you would like to access wirelessly. The only “issue” with this is that currently you have to connect your wireless router to the network USB hub using a standard Ethernet cable. It will be fabulous when the network USB hub is actually it’s own wireless device, so that way you can have the wireless router and network hub in completely different places.
My favorite network USB hub as of right now is the Belkin Network USB hub, which cost around $129.
It works with Mac and Windows and is really sleek looking. You can share up to 5 devices off the hub. The only downside to the device right now is that it does not support HD-streaming webcams or video transfer applications. Other than that, however, it’s a great way to share out your USB drives if you have multiple computers, but only one printer, scanner, or external hard drive.
[tags]wireless usb, usb network hub, network enabled usb hub, network hub with usb, wireless usb hub[/tags]
» Filed Under Computer Tips
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hey, thanks for your article. I have been looking into a way of getting data to my laptop from my external while still being portable. i’d also like to avoid wear and tear on my usb ports. i’ve read a lot of disgruntled reviews about the belkin wireless usb hub, mostly because they weren’t sure of what its function is (the product name is a little misleading). however, i expect it to have some drawbacks since i know the technology isnt perfect yet. my biggest concern is the speed. what kind of speeds can you transfer data from a usb device (external harddrive)? also, is it true that you cannot have 2 computers accessing a connected device at the same time? would unmounting my external harddrive on one computer make it accessible to other computers? thanks in advance.