Question Docking stations and monitors ?

[Kaiser123]

Hi,​

I Have two laptops, one for work and one for personal use. I've recently had to get an external harddrive for my personal laptop to hold game files, but I am fed up with transporting the hard drive around. I have a docking station that I use for work and personal use at home but i can't have the harddrive constanly plugged into the docking station as I don't want any work or personal documents to make their way onto either the hardrive or work laptop. I have been considering getting a second docking station which will be used singarly for personal use, however due to having only one monitor, i am unsure if this is the best solution. Can I please have some advice?​

Many Thanks.​

 

[Ralston18]

Do you have a home network?

 

[punkncat]

Not with laptops (any more) but I use completely separated PC for work and personal use. I share the same monitor by way of inputs that the monitor has.

Although it isn't particularly of help with the storage options, I have found that when using the same PC for both that having completely different browsers helped a lot. You also have to watch what default programs open certain file types, but is a serviceable solution to keeping things apart.

It would seem that so long as the storage drive is connected directly to the machine it's use is intended for and not shared, you should not have access to it from the other machine.

 

[Kaiser123]

Do you have a home network?

Yes I do

 

[Kaiser123]

Not with laptops (any more) but I use completely separated PC for work and personal use. I share the same monitor by way of inputs that the monitor has.

Although it isn't particularly of help with the storage options, I have found that when using the same PC for both that having completely different browsers helped a lot. You also have to watch what default programs open certain file types, but is a serviceable solution to keeping things apart.

It would seem that so long as the storage drive is connected directly to the machine it's use is intended for and not shared, you should not have access to it from the other machine.

Thank you for your help

 

[Ralston18]

Agree with @punkncat:

A storage drive attached to the home laptop and not shared otherwise would prevent the work laptop from gaining access to personal files. Likely the simplest and easiest to implement.

However if you use a NAS on your home network then that provides additional levels of access protection. I.e., the work laptop would need to be granted home network access and subsequent access to the network storage drive. Plus granted further access to personal partitions/folders on the network drive as so desired.

You would have to be very deliberate to "accidently" access personal laptop files via the work laptop.

The greater concern then being to somehow accidently put personal files on the work laptop.

What could be done there is to configure default path names on the personal laptop so saved files only go to the targeted shared drive or some network NAS. Weakness being that updates and apps may change those filepaths.

I.e., default destinations (as mentioned) for specific file type get changed. Still unlikely that that would target outside of the host personal laptop.

Not without some deliberate attempt to do so. (I have had more problems with defaults to online storage....)

Depending on how much admin access you have to the work laptop you could use firewalls to block the two laptops from each other.

An advantage of a home NAS is that you could set up the currently used external harddrive as a network drive via an enclosure designed for such purposes. Plug the enclosure into a router port. Configure and done.

FYI (informational only, not a recommendation or endorsement):

https://www.amazon.com/Networkable-Enclosure-APP-Connect-Connection-CD2510/dp/B0C4YBZ2V8

No need to transport the external drive any more. Yet, if necessary, you could still do so.....

 

[Kaiser123]

Agree with @punkncat:

A storage drive attached to the home laptop and not shared otherwise would prevent the work laptop from gaining access to personal files. Likely the simplest and easiest to implement.

However if you use a NAS on your home network then that provides additional levels of access protection. I.e., the work laptop would need to be granted home network access and subsequent access to the network storage drive. Plus granted further access to personal partitions/folders on the network drive as so desired.

You would have to be very deliberate to "accidently" access personal laptop files via the work laptop.

The greater concern then being to somehow accidently put personal files on the work laptop.

What could be done there is to configure default path names on the personal laptop so saved files only go to the targeted shared drive or some network NAS. Weakness being that updates and apps may change those filepaths.

I.e., default destinations (as mentioned) for specific file type get changed. Still unlikely that that would target outside of the host personal laptop.

Not without some deliberate attempt to do so. (I have had more problems with defaults to online storage....)

Depending on how much admin access you have to the work laptop you could use firewalls to block the two laptops from each other.

An advantage of a home NAS is that you could set up the currently used external harddrive as a network drive via an enclosure designed for such purposes. Plug the enclosure into a router port. Configure and done.

FYI (informational only, not a recommendation or endorsement):

https://www.amazon.com/Networkable-Enclosure-APP-Connect-Connection-CD2510/dp/B0C4YBZ2V8

No need to transport the external drive any more. Yet, if necessary, you could still do so.....

Thanks Raiston 18