Question re: USB drives

[whodoyoulike]

Can you use the USB drives connecting two separate computers with one being a "slave" for the other?

Where you would be capable of accessing the data and/or software from the "slave" on the host computer. I think people were able to install two hard drives on one computer (maybe not).

I have software on my old computer which is incompatible on my new computer which is a lot more faster and powerful. I don't want to experiment and possibly screw up one or both computers.

Thanks.

[DeltaLover]

Can you use the USB drives connecting two separate computers with one being a "slave" for the other?

Where you would be capable of accessing the data and/or software from the "slave" on the host computer. I think people were able to install two hard drives on one computer (maybe not).

I have software on my old computer which is incompatible on my new computer which is a lot more faster and powerful. I don't want to experiment and possibly screw up one or both computers.

Thanks.

I am not sure about what exactly you want to do and how you use the slave - master analogy. Are you referring to the master - slave hard drive analogy? What do you mean to connect the two separate computers? Do you just want to share the resources of the two? Something like this is trivial and assuming they are behind the same network your OS can solve this issue pretty easy.. What OS you are using?

[whodoyoulike]

I have windows. My XP has Excel97 which I'm very comfortable using. My new machine (8.1) has Excel 2013 although powerful, I'm just not used to it as of yet. I just want to bypass re-learning the different things I already know on Excel 2013.

Thanks.

[DeltaLover]

I have windows. My XP has Excel97 which I'm very comfortable using. My new machine (8.1) has Excel 2013 although powerful, I'm just not used to it as of yet. I just want to bypass re-learning the different things I already know on Excel 2013.

Thanks.

One way to do this, is to build a VM with XP and Excel97 and continue working with them while physically using your new box.. Try this: https://www.vagrantup.com/

[Dave Schwartz]

If I understand correctly, you want to make a USB a "share" and then access it from another computer.

If that is the case, you probably CAN but I doubt that you'd want to. You will be bottlenecked by the IO on the host computer.

I actually loaded our software up on a blazing fast USB3 thumb drive. It was touted as being like 7-8 times faster than all the competitors, which it was. At least in theory. The goal was to run my software very fast on my laptop with a 5,400 rpm drive. (Buying one with a 7,200 rpm is just cost-prohibitive these days.)

The problem with most thumb drives is that the read speed is usually substantially faster than the write speed.

What I actually found was not at all what I expected.

The drive was, in fact, blazing fast for both reads and writes. When I copied my 22gb of program files and data to the USB drive, it went about 8x faster than to an external drive attached to the same machine.

PROBLEM: Opening and closing files, or reading/writing is short bursts really slowed things down.

Thus, when I plugged it into my laptop - where the 5,400 rpm drive speed was "acceptable but not fast," - the USB drive was actually slower. Some functions - especially those that were reading or writing to the same files continuously, were quite fast. Far faster than the c-drive on the laptop.

However, when it got to the functionality of grabbing data in small bursts the slower speeds were quite obviously not good enough.


All this being said, if you try to do this make sure you spend the money for a USB3 drive - probably around $40 for a fast one. Of course, you must have a USB3 port to plug into.

Worst case scenario is it doesn't work for you.

BTW, an internal SSD drive - probably around $110 or so - would work much better. Externals not so much.

[whodoyoulike]

If I understand correctly, you want to make a USB a "share" and then access it from another computer...

Actually, I was thinking of connecting both machines with a USB cable with the new machine the master and the old machine the slave.

My new machine does have the USB 3.0 port.

I'll have to investigate this a little more.

Thanks to both of you for providing some things for me to consider.

[headhawg]

Actually, I was thinking of connecting both machines with a USB cable with the new machine the master and the old machine the slave.I have a pretty good idea of what you're trying to do, but it is not going to work the way you think it is. Yes, you can remotely connect from one computer to another. But, if 'Puter A is fast and you connect to 'Puter B (slower) to run some software app, it's not going to run faster because you are connecting from a speedier machine. Even if things worked the way you think they do, you would be limited to the bandwidth of the network connection. DL's solution would be your best bet. Or just learn Excel 2013. You will have to learn the interface, but the essentials are the same.

[JustRalph]

Do you have the cd's for the old software? If so, why not just Uninstall the newer version and install the old version on the new machine. At least give it a try

[whodoyoulike]

I do have the cd for the excel 97 but I read somewhere I wouldn't be able to load onto the new machine.

I've been slowly learning Excel 2013 for the last year. I can see it as being more powerful but, I'm old and I must be resisting it for some reason.

[Hoofless_Wonder]

I do have the cd for the excel 97 but I read somewhere I wouldn't be able to load onto the new machine.

I've been slowly learning Excel 2013 for the last year. I can see it as being more powerful but, I'm old and I must be resisting it for some reason.

The reason for resistance is that the updates in Excel are slight, subtle and new features are not really needed by most users. The same for Word. It's maddening that M$ and many other companies make slight changes to the interface which does NOT improve the efficiency of the user, but does squander much time trying to find the corresponding button in the newer release. The UI test group didn't do their jobs.

[Robert Goren]

Excel 97 will not work on either windows 7 64 bit or windows 8 64 bit machines, I am not sure about the 32 bit versions.

[Dave Schwartz]

Be aware: Connecting Two PCs Using a USB-USB Cable (http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/connecting-two-pcs-using-a-usb-usb-cable/)

Be aware that it takes a special USB cable. Otherwise, you CAN fry your computer.

(USB's transmit power.)

[whodoyoulike]

Thanks Dave.

I'm glad I asked. I guess, I'm going to have to learn Excel 2013.

[JustRalph]

Excel 97 will not work on either windows 7 64 bit or windows 8 64 bit machines, I am not sure about the 32 bit versions.

Yeah,....... I am running it right now on a 64 bit Vista machine. They said it wouldn't work.............

I also have Office Enterprise edition 2003 running on a 64 bit Vista machine. They run fine...... one program has to run in compatibility mode..... but it works fine