1 HD, 3 PC's?

I have two desktops and a laptop, and one external USB HD. What is the best way to set it up so that the hard drive can be hooked up to all 3 computers? Appreciate any assistance here.

 

No expert but you could consider a USB HUB and connect the HDD to is as well and make it shared for all 3 PC's.

 

Can't you connect to to one (preferably one that is usally on) and share the drive? Just as you would with an internal drive?

 

Not a usb hub, that won't work. need to use windows file sharing is really the best easiet solution.

 

Yes, that is what I was refering too. The Drive will need to be formatted in NTFS. You won't have to buy anything.

 

Actually you can format the drive in what ever format you wish. And depending on the different computers/importance of data, you may want to leave it as fat32 that way most systems can read write to it directly if crap happens and you machines take a dump, that way you can in an emgerncy use a win98 machine to pull files if need be. But thats just my opinon.

 

I appreciate the responses so far.

I do not have a wireless network set up, so I don't believe I can "share" drives like that. Why exactly would a USB hub not work?

 

You don't have to be wireless - but you do need a network of some sort..
You could try ... http://www.fabulatech.com/usb-over-network.html or
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/technology-and-science/share-usb-devices-over-ip-network.asp
or
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/usb_server.html
or
share the device via whichever PC it is attached.
http://compnetworking.about.com/od/windowsfilesharing/