Continuing the discussion from Transferring Large Amounts of Data to the My Cloud and a Couple of Other Questions 
:
Continuing the discussion from It is possible to use USB and direct connect to PC:
QUESTION:
Would there be a device that helps read/write to an external Hard drive and also can be read/write by another 2 devices specifically WD MyCloud and let say an Android Box.
We know that MyCloud has USB 3.0 port to extend its storage.
This device should be read by MyCloud as an external hdd (can be a MyBook or any storage) when attached to the USB port.
The Android Box should also reads the device as the external storage similar when you attach a flash disk.
My goal here is that i can transfer and store a large file particularly a video file to WD from my PC via WiFi and i can stream the file to my android box later, flawlessly. I believe MyCloud only streams at 5-6 MBps which 9GB video file may be a problem though I haven’t tried that yet.
I guess what i am trying to say, generally, is that can there be a device that can read/write an external HDD and be used/attached to 2 or multiple devices (Androoid Box, PC, MyCloud, etc) via USB Connection.
Here is a super sketchy sketch of what i am trying to say:
The device on the left is the android box, while the opposite is WD.
They are both connected to a wired LAN.
They are both connected to the “Device” via USB connection.
The “Device” is connected to the HDD
Thanks!
I’m afraid no such device exists yet. USB is a form of single host and client controller. Furthermore, the harddisk partition can only be mounted exclusively on a single mount point. This is where NASes play their part, e.g. I plugin USB or eSata HDDs or even memory cards depending on support be shared over the network. The least you can achieve is by using a USB manual switch where there’s a button to delegate which device you want to match.
BTW I can stream some 15GB+ video even over the internet of course depends on the other end.
I was kind of hoping that there is a machine that does that. But thanks anyway. And unfortunately, i only have a 2Mbps connection at home that is why i am passive on streaming online videos. I’m using transmission to store such files and then later stream it over my home network.
I’m thinking of another way which i don’t know if possible.
Can My Cloud mount a network share as its local folder? I found other devices that do that by editing etc\fstab in linux. I also found out that some routers have USB ports that supports printers and Network Shares as if it is a NAS. Maybe i could mount that share to My Cloud so that Transmission could store downloaded files to that share. I’m not sure if it would directly download files from internet to that share or would it go through My Cloud first.
Thanks for the help!
Yes it’s possible. I used to mount Windows CIFS to the MyCloud for image dump backup purposes, transfer speed about 300-400Mbps. But then later I changed to another custom setup using Cygwin which I conclude the fastest way to speedup my external backups, about 600-700Mbps compared transferring to the slow MyCloud USB. Search this forum, I’ve replied to a similar post about mounting shares to MyCloud buried somewhere.
The files will pass through MyCloud to reach the destination share. I’m using a R8000 router with USB NAS capability but I’m not using it because the transfer speed is slower. No sure why you want to do this long-winded approach because your Android device can easily reach MyCloud and the transfer speed from a router mounted USB NAS I believe is not really that great. I suspect you’re not getting good speed from the Android device is because of the device itself, 100 or 1000Mbps linked?
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I am not familiar on how it is linked, maybe a 100Mbps i guess. Yes, its probably my android box. I was trying to set things up from scraps with limited devices. And i haven’t looked at yet on the speeds for the usb features of routers. I might probably stick with this for now and buy a new faster NAS in the future. Thanks a lot!
NP. Just to add 100Mbps is good enough for 1080p. JFYI all my devices are wired at 1Gbps except for Wii and Samsung smart tv which is only capable of 100Mbps but so far no issues streaming 15Mbps 3D content from MyCloud to the tv and while at it, I’m still able to stream to a couple of Wifi n/ac. I only get hiccups when my tar backups kicks in while doing multiple streamings but I’ve scheduled them accordingly. So you should be fine with just MyCloud itself without the need to place your media on a USB hdd expecting better speeds. Good luck.
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