I've been poking around the web fer a while now looking for an affordable way to connect an external HDD to ethernet, the only commercial options I've seen cost upwards of $400...

Another method would be to use a USB-Ethernet adapter, and use a USB-EIDE adapter on the end of that. Would these two devices work tied together like this?

Or is there another cheaper way for me to mount a standalone HDD in my basement (theft-proof network backup...) without wiring my house with USB. (It already has cat 5e out the a**...
Of, course, I COULD plant a folding node down there somewhere, but that means a nother mobo and proc, ram etc...

Sporty...

hm...
Take a cat5 cable, and chop the ends off. Take the USB cable, chop the ends off. Wire the USB ends to the existing cat5 cable and plug that into your computer. Now buy a USB 2.0 harddrive and stick it in your basement. That's the only thing I could think of...and I don't really know if it would work....it SOUNDS like it might work.... someone else probably has a better idea....

how about i sell u mobo, ram, video, cpu , ethernet, and u go buy a hdd, and there u go

and no happy camper, thats not a very good idea, though it might work..

Okay... let me try this again, as I actually read your post start to finish this time!

Okay, the computer you're trying to back up is on the first floor trying to go to a back-up in the basement?

If that's the case, if it's a finished basement, cut a hole in the ceiling big enough to just get the drive in and out, drill a hole for the USB to come up through the floor next to your PC and then seal off the hole with a heating-vent cover to make it look like part of the ductwork.

Otherwise, if you have an unfinished basement, secure it to the rafters and drill up through the floor from there... Try to hide the drive with insulation or something.

If it's on the second floor, look at cutting a hole in the floor, drop the drive in the hole and cut a notch for the USB cable to come up.

Anyway, good luck with it.

Just hook you up a little barebones comp down in the basement, run some cable down and there ya go...

thats what i have at my house...but the comps are in the same room....my ibm amd k6/2 400 has 80gb (has the majority of my mp3s on it) and 40gb hds in it...its hooked to the network, and always on (surprisingly, being windows)....everyone in the house has their own playlists from the 80gb HD and can listen to what they want, when they want..even on me and my dads wireless laptops....

but yeah, best thing, buy a POS lil computer for around $100 to $200, and newegg.com has a maxtor 120gb drive for $136 (u can go smaller if u want), and u have a file server...

PS, and it could fold when it's not being accessed heavily

Quote: Originally posted by Darksamurai Otherwise, if you have an unfinished basement, secure it to the rafters and drill up through the floor from there... Try to hide the drive with insulation or something.

Probably what I'll end up doing, the usb cable would look suspicious upstairs, but I can feed it from the basement into the wall cavity and install a USB jack in one of the blanks in the network faceplate, and plug the puter into that.

Thanks for the input again.

One day I'll have some useful answers, and not just questions...
Sporty...

Ok, you want to set it up so it will be anti-theft???

What good is a USB HDD if you dont have a computer???

Just a thought...

Frankly, I couldn't care less if the puter was nicked, but I'd be really p****d if all my mp3's, school stuff, cad drawings and other useful stuff went with it...

When I build the new puter, I just plug it in to the HDD, and magically all my data reappears...

Sport...

Just a thought 'billy, but if you're going to that sort of trouble, how about bunging a webcam into the mix?

Here and here might give you some ideas, & I'm sure google will give you more similar pages than you could shake a stick at...

Invest in better anti-theft protection devices. Like a shotgun.

Quote: Originally posted by Wixx Invest in better anti-theft protection devices. Like a shotgun.

A sound suggestion Wixx, as long as you're there to pull the trigger when you get burlarised ... you could always booby trap the door, but coming home drunk & forgetting it's there could put a real crimp on your day!

Uh, yeah, I can just see the coroner trying to work out if it should be called murder, suicide or death by stupidity LOL

Get a tape drive and run a daily full backup..

Yeah, I have a couple discs I left in my car in North Dakota... I'm a writer in my spare time (what a surprise), and I have projects that have taken me years... I'll admit it's not the best back-up solution, as I don't have the funds to go BACK to ND and pick up my stuff if I did get my PC pinched (I would be HIGHLY pissed).

My next data back-up solution (if there was a fire or I got robbed right now, "unhappy" would only begin to describe me) will probably be DVD-Rs (gotta buy a DVD-RW, so this is in the future a little ways) in a safe deposit box.