USB device servers

Interworld Electronics has released the USBN-500 series USB device servers from Quatech.

The series is a way to connect a wide range of USB peripherals to members on a network. The technology allows individuals to connect to and share single-user USB devices through an 802.11b/g wireless network or a wired LAN.

Three models are available. The USBN-500W supports both wireless 802.11b/g and wired 10/100Base-Tx ethernet protocols and allows up to 15 USB 2.0 devices to be networked. The USBN-500 provides RJ45 10/100Base-Tx ethernet and supports four USB 2.0 devices, while the USBN-500NAS adds two network attached storage ports to the standard USBN-500 solution.

Network attached storage allows USB hard drives to be connected to the device server to provide file-based storage to network clients.

Both the wired and wireless servers are equipped with isochronous data transfer support, USB devices that stream audio and video can be shared among multiple Windows and MAC users over an 802.11b/g wireless network or an ethernet wired network.

Virtually all types of USB devices can be networked, making the device servers suitable for business and industry.

The server is equipped with a virtual link that allows individuals to manage all their networked USB devices in one window, real time. Using this utility, individual USB device applications can be launched automatically when the device is connected to a PC.