Is it possible to tether my laptop to my desktop as an external drive?

lbeck said:

So it's okay with the proper cable. The last thing I want to do is to damage my laptop or desktop computers - or corrupt their brains (HDDs).

Yes, it's fine....with proper cable designed for that purpose. What I posted is just an example, first one I hit with Google on Amazon. Lots of others out there. You may not be old enough to remember, but it's the old "Lap-Link" method of connecting computers. An ordinary USB cable has power pins on the outside edges, +/- DC. The two pins in the center are data. Proper cable will not have the power pins enabled, so you won't fry anything with the two machines doing power games at each other. Plus, I believe, the center pins in the cable are crossed so IN>OUT, and vice versa.

Maybe Martin can verify.

storageman said:

When I was working I also had a similar problem. I traveled alot and carried a laptop all over the USA. But when I was home, I had a desktop system, Large Screen, speed etc. and I preferred to use it for work related efforts. In my case the needed files were on my laptop. I networked the systems and allowed full read/write capability on the laptop. I never moved a file, I just accessed it via the shared network. To insure I had fast access to the laptop, I would connect it directly to the router (vs wirelessly) and never had much of a delay. I did insure that all of the files I needed were in a defined partition on the laptop. Saved me a bunch of grief if I forgot to move the files back and I was out of town. I used that environment for 5 years and before the wide spread availability of cloud computing. Today I would probably opt for the Cloud.

I would, too, except I think he's talking 18-20GB at a crack. That's a lot to-from the cloud. And if he only has the MS allotment of 5GB, well.....there goes that!