Two Macs and one USB drive?

Can two Macs share one USB drive at the same time? Is there some kind of networking gizzie that would allow this?

If you have a router like the AirPort Extreme - you attach the USB drive to the router and it shares the disk for you.
I know there are other Wireless Access Points and Routers that provide similar functionality, but not all routers do this.
It seems like you are looking for a NAS solution. Typically these are boxes with USB and ethernet ports that you simply install on the network. Right now - Leopard does not always play nicely with them.
Mine is a CoolMax 550 - and it is accessible via command line (terminal) and FTP but unreliably through Finder. Many people hope 10.5.2 resolves this type of issue but no one knows for sure.
Honestly with the price of storage so low - most people just add another drive. Each of my Macs has it's own backup drive on top of the one shared from my Airport Extreme. Storage is down near $0.30/GB or less.
The first time I bought a TB of disk, I spent over a million dollars (thankfully not my money). Today I have over 5TB at home.
Message was edited by: lethal

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Booting two Macs from one external drive: 10.8 and App Store?

I boot two Macs from one external harddrive. Does this mean that when 10.8 is sold exclusively via the App Store and thereby linked to a unique hardware identifier, I am going to have issues with activation/authentification each time I switch machines? I have avoided the App Store since I discovered that an app I bought there, and which I really needed to open automatically on log-in, had to be manually re-activated with my Apple ID after every switch (so that I eventually deleted it and reverted to an earlier, non-App Store version).

Welcome to the forum!
There are a couple of "solutions" to your problem. The easiest, and possibly the best for you (although it is a bit slower) is to copy your catalog onto the external drive as well.
Then when you plug in the drive, you will always have your latest catalog for access.
The other way is to keep a local copy of your catalog, and copy it onto the local drive as a way to transfer it from one computer to the other.
This has the problem of possibly not being in sync, that is, you forgot to copy it over once and did some editing. Then you would end up with essentually two different catalogs, instead of one in two places.
You can copy the catalog either with your OS, or you can "export as catalog" and specify the external drive as the destination. Then, on your other computer, "import from catalog" and only take the meta-data settings (it's on the import dialog box).
Personally, when I'm traveling, I have my catalog on my external drive as well. It just makes life easier, and I don't have to worry about it being out of sync, or losing it (and not the images).
So, I would go with the first method, at least to start. To get your catalog over there, you can either export as catalog or copy it, either one will work.
You can find the location of your catalog file (if you don't know where it is) in the catalog settings menu prompt. Both the location and the name will be displayed.
Cheers!

Lighroom 3 on two Macs utilising one external drive

Hello
This my first post
I use Lightroom 3 on a MacBook Pro. My photographs(library) is held on external disk
I have recently purchased a MacBook Air for use in the field, I have installed LR3 and have
what I thought would be a simple issue.
How can i access the photographs from both Macs??
grateful for any input

Welcome to the forum!
There are a couple of "solutions" to your problem. The easiest, and possibly the best for you (although it is a bit slower) is to copy your catalog onto the external drive as well.
Then when you plug in the drive, you will always have your latest catalog for access.
The other way is to keep a local copy of your catalog, and copy it onto the local drive as a way to transfer it from one computer to the other.
This has the problem of possibly not being in sync, that is, you forgot to copy it over once and did some editing. Then you would end up with essentually two different catalogs, instead of one in two places.
You can copy the catalog either with your OS, or you can "export as catalog" and specify the external drive as the destination. Then, on your other computer, "import from catalog" and only take the meta-data settings (it's on the import dialog box).
Personally, when I'm traveling, I have my catalog on my external drive as well. It just makes life easier, and I don't have to worry about it being out of sync, or losing it (and not the images).
So, I would go with the first method, at least to start. To get your catalog over there, you can either export as catalog or copy it, either one will work.
You can find the location of your catalog file (if you don't know where it is) in the catalog settings menu prompt. Both the location and the name will be displayed.
Cheers!

Two Macs and One iPod Touch?

What is the best way to use an iPod Touch with 2 Macs?
I mean in terms of keeping the contacts, iTunes library, and iFoto library etc sync'ed between 2 Macs? I don't want to use MobileMe because of the size of the libraries and being able to work offline.
I am considering buying a MacBook Pro for traveling. But at home I use my MacPro.
Thanks much for your help.
Olaf

Personally, I have my iTunes and iPhoto on an external hard drive that I can plug into whatever computer I'm using at the time.
Or you can search this forum and/or iTunes help for "two computers, one Touch," "using the Touch with two computers," or something along those lines, and you should find some information. I can't remember, but I think I found info in iTunes help.

Reversing two system pro, mac and one for windows system.

I divided my pro storage to two one for mac and one for windows system. Can I reverse that now? I only want to have mac system on my pro

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Two Mini Mac and One Monitor

Hey everyone,
Whats the best one to do? I have two mini mac and one monitor with a WIRELESS (Bluetooth) keyboard and mouse...
Should I get a KVM or Network,etc?
Or what is the best advice for me to get?
Im using one Mini Mac for work just as Photoshop and Lightroom ONLY,
Other mini mac for play around, download, internet search,etc
both 10.4.11 BUT will get Snow Leopard soon...
1.66 Ghz Inter Core Duo
and
cant remember the other Ghz as its shut down at the moment but higher then 1.66Ghz, Inter Core Duo
Johnny

...with a WIRELESS (Bluetooth) keyboard and mouse...
Do you have a separate keyboard & mouse for the other Mac? Bluetooth keyboards and mice normally can only be paired to one device and since the Bluetooth receiver is built-in to the Macs, you normally can't attach your Bluetooth wireless keyboard/mouse to a KVM. (If you have a non-Bluetooth wireless keyboard/mouse with it's own dedicated receiver, then it's possible to use that with a USB KVM. But those are mostly PC keyboards/mice so most Mac people don't have such.)
So that basically eliminates KVM as a sharing device for you. Leaving just something like screen sharing to remote control one of the Macs. You probably will not like the way Photoshop and Lightroom work over screen sharing, so remote control just the "internet only" Mac, not the Photoshop Mac.

Two mac laptops, one iPhone and an iPod touch. Sync apps?

Hi there, between my wife and I, we have two Mac laptops, one iPhone and an iPod touch. The iPod touch is new- is it possible to get the apps that have already been purchased for the iPhone, onto the iTouch?

schmjorgen wrote:
but can i then only ever use both the iphone and itouch with that particular mac?
you can use home sharing to transfer media files (incl. apps) between the two Macs. if you and your wife use separate Apple ID's to purchase content, authorize the wife's machine for yours and yours for hers.
is there a way to make both portable devices work with both macs?
by design, iOS devices sync with only one library at a time.
i am hoping the "home sharing" feature will be the answer but so far i have not been able to make it work.
these links may prove helpful:
Setting up Home Sharing on your computer
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Is there a cable with two Apple connections and one USB connection?

Is there a cable with two Apple connections and one USB connection?

it would be possible without damage to the phones if only the charging pins was used
but it would mean the 2 phones would charge 1/2 as fast as normally

Will only support one USB drive at a time

Background
This is happening with a Mid 2007 Mini, OS X 10.7.4.
I use this Mini soley as an iTunes music server. The OS is on the internal drive. Music is on a separate drive, as is Time Machine. No keyboard is connected. I do all maintence wirelessly via screen sharing from another Mac.
Recently I changed the drives from conventional ext. FW hard drives to ext USB SSD. The USB enclosures are USB2/3 "Hornet" brand. The SSDs are Samsung 256GB 830s.
The Problem
Only one USB drive will stay mounted at a time. Both drives will initially mount but once one is put into use, i.e., play a song or start a Time Machine update, the other drive will unmount and I get the nasty "You disconnected your USB drive improperly...." I've seen the threads on USB drives randomly unmounting. This is not that issue. My drives do not randomly unmount; one will unmount as soon as the other is in use. (The unmounted drive stays unmounted. It does not remount when the other drive is no longer in use).
The drives came with USB cables that had dual ends, one for data/power the other power only. The problem occurs regardless of whether I use just the data/power or both.
My initial thoughts are:
1) It's a power issue and the Mini can't support the power requirements of both drives simulateously. I need an A/C adapter.
2) It's an incompatible enclosure (even though it said Mac compatible, who knows if it was actually tested and not just presumed).
3) Crappy cables.
The Question
Since testing any of these hypothesis will cost me $ (and time to buy -- and return if unsuccesful) I'm hoping someone here has experienced something similar to guide me to the fix a bit quicker. Am I close here, or could it be something else?

I believe Bus powered drives are for the birds, & more often a problem on Macs than PCs, get a good AC powered USB hub... or two.

Backing up from one USB Drive to Another

I have two WD USB drinves that I use for my photos, one as the primsary drive,the other as the backup. When these were connected to my Windows PC I could use Western Digital's WD Anywhere Backup software to provide an "instantaneous" back up of any of the photo files that I hadd added / changed on my primary drive. This worked like a charm. Using the software with my USB drives connected to me MacBook Pro . Mavericks laptop the software thinks that it is working perfectly but is not backing up all the files. On a test I specified a folder with 40+K files and 240GB of data as the folder to be watched and backed up. The software reported a successful backup but only 11K files and 60GB of data had been transferred. I reported this to WD who indicated that the software is designed to back up from the coputer's hard drive to a back up frive, not from one external drive to another.
My question is: Does anyone know of any software that will run as a daemon and automatically back up new / changed files from one USB drive to another? Obviously I could do this with any of a multitude of products if I scheduled hourly/daily backups. However, I would prefer the convenience of "instantaneous" backups as soon as a change is made within a watched follder. From what I have read Chronosync seems to be the best backup software for Macs but, as one reviewer noted (http://www.macworld.com/article/2011101/review-chronosync-4-3-5-a-multitalented- file-sync-and-backup-tool.html) "I would like to see ChronoSync go one step further and offer an option found in some other sync software: the ability to watch specified folders and synchronize changes as soon as they occur rather than waiting until the next scheduled run." Can anyone point me to the "other sync software" that offers this capability?
Thanks in advance
Brian Catterall

SOLVED
Once I got Time Machine to perform totally new backups it picked up the new external drive containing my images.
John

Can I backup two macs onto one external time machine?

Can I backup two macs onto one external time machine drive? I am trying to do this over Wi-Fi.

Yes, the external drive has to be formatted correctly to HFS+ and shared to the network.
It doesn't matter how the second machine logs into the network but wireless back will be extremely slow as it will involve double hop wireless, I presume to a wifi router somewhere. For incremental backups this is no biggie but do the initial backup with the drive plugged into that particular computer or over ethernet.. gigabit for preference.
Pondini has some instructions as he has for most things.
http://pondini.org/TM/4.html
Also look at Q33 where he lists using a shared drive on another Mac.
If you are planning using something other than wifi router give clear information about the network layout you have and hope to use.

I have two Macs and I am using the same Apple ID on both. All of my info, history etc is showing up on both. How do I turn this off?

I have two Macs and I am using the same Apple ID on both. All of my info, history etc is showing up on both. How do I turn this off?

You likely have iCloud turned on in at least Safari. If you don't want Safari to sync between these devices turn one of them off. System Preferences - iCloud - Safari (uncheck the box)

ICloud - have two iPads and one Macbook and want to sync reminders on all three

iCloud - have two iPads and one Macbook and want to sync reminders on all three. I have managed to get the Macbook and one iPad to sync, but wjat about the other iPad?

First check that all your settings are correct, that reminders syncing (calendars on a computer) is checked on all devices (system preferences > iCloud on a mac and settings > iCloud on a iPhone, iPad or iPod).
Make sure the reminders you are adding are added to your 'iCloud' account and not an 'On My Mac', 'On My Phone' or other non iCloud account (you can do this by checking in accounts on an iOS device by tapping the icon with three lines in the top left corner of the screen, or the right side panel by clicking on the small triangle to the right of the word 'Reminders' in iCal on a computer), non iCloud reminders will not sync.
If you are sure that everything is set up correctly and your reminders are in the iCloud group, you might try unchecking reminders syncing (calendars syncing on a computer) in the iCloud settings, restarting your device and then re-enabling notes syncing.

Get 8004 error when using copy past command transferring pictures from one USB drive to another, why ?

Why do I get 8004 error, when I use copy past command to transfer pictures from one USB drive to another ?
There is no problem if the second drive is empty.

mumbles27 wrote:
one is MS-DOS
would that be in FAT32 or NTFS ?
mac OS extended (case sensitive)
i'm not 100 % sure but i have a fancy such a combination may not play well together.
nothing bigger than 2GB for one file
i was asking because FAT3 has a limitation in that it will not allow you to copy files larger than 4 GB.
JGG

If you registrate one Apple ID for each iPhone/iPad, you'll get 5GB on iCloud for each Apple ID, right? I have two iPhones and one iPad with the same Apple ID, why can't I get 5 GB fo each of them?

If you registrate one Apple ID for each iPhone/iPad, you'll get 5GB on iCloud for each Apple ID, right? I have two iPhones and one iPad with the same Apple ID, why can't I get 5 GB fo each of them?

Actually, everyone missed one point, when a device is priced, the cost of icloud storage space for that device is also included in it that is why they are able to give you 5gb each for each user ID, in nutshell there is nothing free coming with apple device purchase, it is paid for. What they are trying by giving only 5gb per user ID irrespective of the number of devices used is pure broadlight looting, they take money from you when you buy each device and give you nothing, This is a case of goods and services bought but not fully deliverd ie apple can be suied for discreminatory treatment towards it's users. I wonder why no one tried this yet in America where everyone sue everyone for petty things..... there is no one to take up this issue? . if tim got any love for the guys who shell out money for the devices his company makes, he should be implimenting this as priority before someone wake up from sleep and sue him.

Two Macs and one USB drive?

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