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I'm looking for a way to access an High-Speed Drive (SATA SSD, 500 Mbyte/s Read-Speed) from two computers with the maximal possible speed. Parallel accessing from both computers is not necessary. Both computers are very close to each other.

The naive way would possible be to plug the Drive via SATA to the machine which should access it, but it should be possible to do it from outside, without needing to modify anything. As far as I know the SATA-Interface does just support point-to-point connections, so connecting both computers with the SATA-Port from the Drive is not possible.

The other way would be Gigabit-Ethernet, but it's to slow to get the maximum speed.

External interfaces available on both machines: USB 3.0, eSATA, FireWire, 1000-Ethernet

Any ideas would be helpful.

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    The problem is computer A won't know computer B is writing to the hard drive and could over write something it isn't supposed to. You need an intelligent device in the middle to mediate.
    – cybernard
    Commented Jan 1, 2014 at 19:16
  • True. But you can work around it with two partitions, one mounted RW from each computer and one mounted RO. That has been done before (granted, in old SCSI times where you had multiple hostadapters on a bus and not SATA which is either point to point or point to port-multiplier. (and a PM is the reverse of what the OP wants).
    – Hennes
    Commented Jan 1, 2014 at 19:54

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  • eSATA and USB 3.0 (Allow easy switching between computers but not at the same time.)

  • 10 gigabit NICs exist. (1250MBps if your other hardware can handle it)

  • Build your own NAS (network attached storage with 10Gb)

  • 2 Port 2-to-1 USB 3.0 Peripheral Sharing Switch

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  • Forgot to mention, 10GB NICs are currently too expensive for the task (and probably not handable by the hardware). Is there any way I can "switch" USB 3.0/eSATA between the computers without actually doing anything physical? To clearify, from outside in the post I meant "remotely". Maybe wasn't that clear...
    – TSGames
    Commented Jan 1, 2014 at 18:25
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The most compatible and convenient way would be a USB 3.0 enclosure. You put the disk there and convert it to a high speed external USB disk which also works in older USB 2.0 systems, as well as USB 1.1 should you want to use it in another computer. The fastest is an eSATA enclosure which converts the disk to an external SATA III disk and you lose nothing in speed. The best solution is a eSATA and USB 3.0 enclosure so you can connect it via eSATA to your two systems for maximum speed, but you can also use the USB connection for another computer if necessary.

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