Why would somoene need a Network Drive?

[akasixcon]

I just finished setting up my network drive for my WRT610N router. My router had a USB so I hooked up my Calvary 1TB eHDD to it. Everything went pretty well. It looked like I had an extra computer in my network but it was only an extra network drive. The problem with it is that whenever I unrar compressed files it takes forever compared to hooking it up to your computer. I decided to just use my desktop computer to connect with my eHDD.

As soon as I connected my desktop computer to my eHDD the speeds of uncompressing files was a lot faster. I was able to move, copy, uncompress, compress files through my laptop on the eHDD that was connected to my desktop computer.

Which leads me to the question, if you can just connect your eHDD to your desktop computer; what is the need of a Network drive? What is the purpose of having a USB in your router? Can anyone explain?




* eHDD = External Harddrive

 

[Hefemeister]

The main reason is so that multiple users on the network can access the data. That way you do not have to have a shared drive on a computer and have to have that computer on all of the time to share files.

 

[akasixcon]

Oh good point. Never thought about turning off the computer. Well in my case I leave my desktop on 24/7 so I don't really need the network drive.