Can I turn my external USB HDD into a wireless HDD?

Question

There's a new league of "wireless HDDs" available out there,

For example: The Transcend Storejet Cloud and the Seagate Satellite

My question is: is it possible to make use of a wireless USB adapter in conjunction with an external USB HDD and turn it into a 'wireless HDD' of sorts?

Powering the wireless USB adapter and the external HDD can be done by using a self powered USB hub, as seen here.

I do not want to go for a NAS server based solution.

I think you'd have to add some sort of processor between everything. — Daniel R Hicks, Apr 30 '13 at 17:43
@john Not a dumb question in the slightest; see my answer below. — Aaron Miller, Apr 30 '13 at 17:54
I never tried USB Wi-Fi adapter. But as per it's description, it can makes a device wireless. You need to connect to that device to access data. But since it requires power supply, your HDD need to be on power. I believe, this will be visible to your neighbours too. — Amit Kumar Gupta, Mar 12 '16 at 08:26

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 30 '13 at 17:53

6

What you're looking for is a wireless USB hub such as this one (disclaimer: I've never used one, that's just the first Google result I found).

On one end, it has USB ports as with any USB hub; on the other end, it has a Wi-Fi radio that talks to your wireless network and exposes attached storage devices. For stuff like USB microscopes, oscilloscopes, &c., I wouldn't expect it to work, but something simple like a hard disk should be fine.

answered Apr 30 '13 at 17:53

Aaron Miller

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Oh, and the one I linked acts as a powered USB hub, which I expect is usual -- so you shouldn't need to do anything special for power; unless your external HDD has a power adapter separate from the USB cable, you should be able to just plug it into the hub and be off and running. – Aaron Miller Apr 30 '13 at 17:56
wow,thanks a million aaron miller. this is just what i was looking for – john Apr 30 '13 at 18:07
thanks daniel:"I think you'd have to add some sort of processor between everything" – john Apr 30 '13 at 18:09
thanks daniel:"I think you'd have to add some sort of processor between everything".......actually i've already done something like this....my "processor" is an android tablet.i connected my external hdd to the tablet and with a little bit of fiddling around got it to "broadcast the hdd"..........this way i can now have all data in one central place streamed wirelessly instead of using NAS server or something like that.....but i wanted to know if its possible to boot off of that hdd i.e. booting off of the external hdd having both data and os on which would be "wirelessly streamed". – john Apr 30 '13 at 18:18
AFAIK no BIOS supports wifi booting.....this is where i think what aaron said becomes useful....maybe i should be using the device he suggested instead of an android tablet in order to be able to "boot wirelessly" – john Apr 30 '13 at 18:20
@john Glad to be of help. But you're not going to be able to boot this way; for that to happen, your BIOS would have to know how to bring up your computer's wireless adapter, connect it to your network, and then carry out some kind of PXE boot via that interface...all before an OS is loaded. It's possible in theory, but extremely unlikely to work in practice -- see http://superuser.com/questions/310915/is-possible-to-boot-on-pxe-over-a-wifi-device for more. – Aaron Miller Apr 30 '13 at 18:24
gr8 work 1ce again aaron :-) – john Apr 30 '13 at 18:46

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 05 '13 at 07:06

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just found this: iUSBport . Looks very compact and versatile. Sells for the same price as the previous suggest solution. Hope it helps.

answered Dec 05 '13 at 07:06

Ben Green

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score -2 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 21 '15 at 16:40

There are some cheap options such as:

Can I turn my external USB HDD into a wireless HDD?

3 Answers3

Linked