USB Hard Drive Enclosures With LAN Connectors

USB enclosure for IDE drives

When it comes to external storage, another alternative is to seek out enclosures that can be attached to a network, which means we're talking about network attached storage (NAS) in the broadest possible sense of that term. What makes this interesting as a storage option is that those who have access to a network can use it to access disk drives. One disadvantage is a relatively slow 100 Mbps connection; data transfer rates on a LAN are noticeably lower than USB 2.0, though only a single PC can access the drives when USB is used. While other devices that support Gigabit Ethernet are available, only a small number of users will have a Gigabit network and a compatible switch in their homes.

The hard drive may be mounted across the network, then accessed as if it were local