1 Hard Drive 2 Macs

[0339327]

So I do a lot of video work and, as such, have a lot of storage. I would like to setup an external drive on a MacMini to run Dropbox and have the same drive mount on my MacPro, at the same time, for use of the files.
This would allow my MacPro to sleep while the MacMini syncs with Dropbox.

I know that for a long time, connecting one drive to two machines was contraindicated, as the drive could be corrupted. I am wondering if anyone tried this or knows anything more. It would be a big benefit to my workflow.

 

[Madonion]

yes if its in a server , IMHO the way you seem to want no

 

[Brian33]

I don't think you can directly-connect a hard drive to two different Macs using any of the standard interfaces (USB, Thunderbolt, etc.).

What I'd suggest is to have the hard drive directly-connected to the Mini, and then turn on file-sharing on the Mini. Then the MacPro can connect to the shared hard drive over your network (assuming both Macs are on the same local network). So the MacPro has network-connected access to the drive.

This is quite easy to set up (in Monterey, System Prefs-->Sharing-->File Sharing turned on).

 

[chown33]

The only way I can think of to maintain TB-level speed is to use TB as the network connection between the computers.

See if you can set it up with this guide:

Use IP over Thunderbolt to connect Mac computers

Connect two Mac computers together using Thunderbolt and set them up to communicate with each other using Internet Protocol (IP).

support.apple.com

I found that page using search terms: mac network using thunderbolt

I don't know what the latency would be like with such a setup. The two hosts are doing file-sharing, which I think relies on SMB, so there's still a level it has to go through that isn't present with a direct TB-connected disk.

 

[chown33]

If you have a spare TB cable, and you can move the two computers close enough for the cable to connect them, you could at least test whether a direct-TB connection gets you the latency and throughput you want.

My guess is that a direct-TB connection will have throughput (raw bandwidth) at least as good as a 10GB CAT6a wired connection.

The latency for both is probably similar, if not the same, because in both cases you'll still be relying on builtin file-sharing. So if the direct-TB latency isn't good enough, or the direct-TB bandwidth isn't good enough, then it seems unlikely to me that a CAT6a wired connection would be good enough. In short, you'd get a simple fail-early indicator without having to setup a CAT6a network.

 

[Basic75]

I don't think you can directly-connect a hard drive to two different Macs using any of the standard interfaces (USB, Thunderbolt, etc.).

You certainly can't connect a drive to two machines, and if you could you'd immediately corrupt the drive unless both machines mount it read-only (not too useful) or you use a special filesystem that is designed for this use case (which is not something you can just find on the app store).

 

[Basic75]

I think what I'm going to end up with is a CAT 6a network and thunderbolt to 10GB CAT6a interfaces. This isn't inexpensive but it should reliably work. My biggest expense is that a 10GB network switch will cost more than the Mac Mini.

Wouldn't it be simpler, making it also less expensive and more reliable, to just let the Mac Pro do the Dropbox sync? What's the big picture, what problem are you trying to solve here?

 

[Basic75]

I don’t want my MacPro to be “busy” syncing TB of data on a regular basis. Also, that eats up CPU power which is better used for editing.

How many percent of a single processor core does syncing dropbox use? Can your editing software even max out all processor cores simultaneously?

 

[Basic75]

Some plug-ins, especially third party plug-ins, are limited to single cores. I generally don’t run anything other than FCP and Mail when I’m editing.

Sorry but to me it sounds like you are trying to solve something that isn't really a problem. Unless you actually notice a serious performance impact from the sync and it's not just the idea that this might be the case.