Dicota Link does USB 2.0 PC-to-PC data transfer

What happens if your hip new pre-N network is on the fritz and you need to transfer more data than your Micro Vault can handle? The solution would be simple if you had Dicota Korea's Link handy. This little device offers simple 480Mb/s PC-to-PC networking in a nifty little Plug & Play package. No word on a US release, but from what we can tell the Link is Windows-only and sports blue LEDs that let you know when a connection has been made. And don't let the picture scare you, the approximately €20 price tag includes a cable extension so you won't need to keep the computers too close for comfort. [Warning: source link not in English]

[Via AVING]

[9tinyfingaz @ Jun 16th 2006 10:28AM]

Walk into compusa much. Gotta love compusa. we actually have alot of things you see here first.

http://www.compusabusiness.com/products/product_info.asp?pfp=SEARCH&product_code=333069&Pn=USB_2_0_Link_Adapter

[strider_mt2k @ Jun 16th 2006 10:28AM]

My Radio Schmack has a USB linking cable hanging on the wall right now, available in the US.
(Most likey overpriced, but available nonetheless.)

Is this device significantly different somehow?

[Apothus @ Jun 16th 2006 10:32AM]

this is great, i have been lookiin for something like this, no more stuffing about with pathetic wireless connnections when transfering documents between pcs and laptops

[Tony @ Jun 16th 2006 10:33AM]

How is it better than a cross over network cable? Speed I guess...

[Mike @ Jun 16th 2006 10:35AM]

What's wrong a good old crossover cable? Every PC and laptop I've seen in the last 5 years has had Ethernet built in.

[Khakionion @ Jun 16th 2006 10:47AM]

Mike: Ethernet is 100Mbps. USB2 is 480Mbps. Unless you've got gigabit Ethernet, this is a huge speed advantage.

That, and this is supposedly easier? I dunno about that. But it is faster.

[JP @ Jun 16th 2006 11:16AM]

It would be nice if one of these things would ever let a mac talk to a pc. This has been plug and play on macs with a run of the mill firewire cable, but for cross platform the best is still with cat5, which as noted is slow in comparison in most situations.

[CH @ Jun 16th 2006 11:42AM]

Looking at this thing reminds me of the movie Requiem For a Dream.

[tiuk @ Jun 16th 2006 11:43AM]

Firewire can do this natively, can't it? Too bad it's not more widespread.

[Greg @ Jun 16th 2006 11:47AM]

I always wondered how I could do that better on my PC. Still, I think I'd rather have a Target Disk option like OS X has.

[chris r @ Jun 16th 2006 12:26PM]

Saw this one at ThinkGeek.com a while back.

20 bucks and in stock...

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/8199/

[Juaquin @ Jun 16th 2006 12:36PM]

@ chris r

Yeah, I just got one of those. It's been on thinkgeek for eons - not sure why engadget just noticed these. Transfer speeds are insanely fast, and without the hassle of setting up a network.

[jr @ Jun 16th 2006 1:24PM]

Does the one on Compusa or Thinkgeek require drivers to be installed or does it look like a mass storage unit? I see a cd is included, but maybe it's just for Win98? Ditto on Radioshack?

[Joe Anderson @ Jun 16th 2006 1:28PM]

Couldn't one somehow make a Ethernet cable to this?

[strider_mt2k @ Jun 16th 2006 1:40PM]

Couldn't one somehow read the comments?

[Charlie @ Jun 16th 2006 2:58PM]

To CH ----That comment was the best.

[harry @ Jun 16th 2006 3:56PM]

khakionion
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/8199/

Transfer up to 25 MB/s not 480

croosver cable is better

[Guffy @ Jun 16th 2006 4:12PM]

harry:
No one said 480 MB/s. USB 2.0 is theoretically 480 MBit/s. There is a huge difference on MB and MBit.

[Taylor Kemp @ Jun 16th 2006 5:28PM]

you can pick the exact same thing, even looks almost the same, at CompUsa fro 29.99, I am holding one right now as i write this. this is not news

[xman @ Jun 16th 2006 9:57PM]

I wonder does laptop have to be the same hight, other wise it seem to break easily and how can you connect if one laptop have vertical usb port and another horizontal usb port, it doesn't make sense to spent 20 dollor if this product doesn't come with out usb cable. Just use regular cross over cable :) then.

[Oddmanout @ Jun 16th 2006 11:08PM]

I've had three of these type of devices over the past few years. I used them both at home and at work (IT Help Desk)

First a Xircom that NEVER worked right, $30 I'll never see again. Second a much cheaper one from Bafo, I got it for $12. It was USB 1.1 and required drivers for anything other than XP (though it did support Mac-to-Mac and PC-to-Mac), and topped out at 6mbps for transfer speeds. It worked ok, it also often needed to have drivers loaded, but the peer-to-peer two pane window based software interface was pretty intuitive. I even ran Ghost booted from a floppy (version 7.0 I think) over it a few times. 6mbps may not sound fast, but with the flighty cat3 wiring and erratic HUB infrastructure we had in that building, a 1.5GB ghosting chould take up to 16 hours if we ran it over the network. It really came in handy because at that particular job site we were under the pervue of an increasingly restrictive IT security/Network Ops group, and they required all machines attached to the network proper to go through a security scan. Given that this particular campus was one of the top 10 places in America most targeted for hacking attacks I can understand the caution, but the scan could take up to three days to get done (a written request had to be processed...the scan itself was like 10 minutes). So when we had people from other sites come in to work for a few days if they brought laptops we just did our own in-house security inspection, then let them use an old third-tier desktop to connect their laptop to for file access. It was a little cumbersome but it beat having them sit on there hands for 3 days and wait for security, and they could access all the necessary files, the internet, and start working pretty much on arrival (complete setup usually only took about 20 minutes).

I later got another one from Bafo as well, but it was the upgraded model...just for fun really. It was cool. Though it too was USB 1.1 it supported TCP/IP, IPX, and Netbeui but still did everything its predecessor did. That one I only used at home.

But as cool as these things are (and as much as I actually used them) they are not that revolutionary. My unique work situation is really what made them so valuable to me, but in most cases a crossover cable (which most IT shops/desks/dungeons can fabricate for themselves in a pinch)or even an old Laplink/Null-modem cable will do the same thing (with Win2K and up that is).

Still, they're cool little gadgets to have. Particularly for the average consumer who might not know an IP address from an e-mail address but still wants to transfer lots of files between a laptop and a desktop.

[Neal Saferstein @ Jun 18th 2006 9:30PM]

Where are they available?

Neal Saferstein

[Chris Weaver @ Jul 14th 2006 11:12PM]

Now just $9.99 at Compusa
http://www.compusabusiness.com/products/product_info.asp?pfp=SEARCH&product_code=333069&Pn=USB_2_0_Link_Adapter

When you first plug it in it pops up like a CDROM and autoinstalls LapLink like software called EasyCopy-Net.
It looks a lot like PC-Linq
http://www.homenethelp.com/web/review/images/pc-linq.gif

Nice to use between 2 PCs when on a network but one or both of them are using VPN which isolates them from the local network.

Too bad you can't simply mount a drive from the other computer through the device...