2 Maxtor 300GB's + 1 mac + 1 pc, connection solutions?

[hyedipin]

Hi everyone,

I have been searching for a solution on how to simultaneously connect these four pieces of hardware..

Here is what i have:

2 x Maxtor USB/FIREWIRE 300 GB External Hard Drives
1 x iBook with 1x Firewire 400 port
1 x Toshiba Laptop with 1x USB 2.0 and 1x 4pin Firewire port
2 x 16 ft. USB cables
2 x 6 ft. 6 pin to 6 pin firewire cables

My current set up is
I have to keep switching cables when I need to connect from from another.
I have two 6ft's connected going to iBook so I switch back and forth and when I need to connect to my toshiba I do the same thing but the drives are in the entertainment unit with my other stuff.

I need a solution, and need your suggestions.

-If I buy a firewire hub can I connect two hard drives to the hub and one cable to iBook and one to Toshiba, will they be able to see both HD's at the same time? I don't need them to be on at the same time, so I can turn off mac and turn on toshiba but I really don't want to keep switching cables.. so all connected so cables are not lying around

-If I buy a firmware switch, i saw one at compusa they are expensive but if I can use eveything at the same time it could be worth it.

I forgot to mention that I am using Tiger on iBook, so it has no problems accessing 300gb disk, but it is read-only, please do not consider that, I am fine with read-only on iBook, because I am using iBook as player and editor for the files that I save on toshiba. I just create or download on Toshiba and transfer to maxtor for storage, and later access them on iBook.

I just want to get rid of the cable switching and all that turn on and off's..


Any comments are appreciated.
Thank You

 

[Big B]

What you could do is connect both drives to one and share them over the network where they'd be accessable to the other rig. Now, you'd have to leave it on, but that's my pick of something that will work.

I'm not sure if using a Firewire hub would achieve the desired results or not as I've not had a real need to play with Firewire.

The next best option would be to have a small server PC with a firewire card in it, have both hard drives connected to that, share them both. You wouldn't need anything powerful, just something that would act as a server and have a network connection.

 

[hyedipin]

You might be right, but the problem with that, anytime you need to access drives, you need to boot up the "server" pc.
Plus, file transfer speed would reduce drastically.

I am not worried about writing anything to the hard drives from Mac so I am fine with it.

Actually, I remember I can chainlink the maxtors. So I can try this way, get a short firewire cable and connect firewire to firewire on two drives, and get (if you know any out there) 16 ft. 6pin to 4 pin and another 6pin to 6pin firewire. But still I would have to switch cables when I need to switch from ibook to PC.

That's where I need the hub/switch so I don't need to keep doing that.

OR

do you know any adaptor or something where I can switch 6 pin to 4 pin quickly? *edit: found some here: http://www.networktechinc.com/cable-1394.html

Thanks.