USB Peripheral Switches - Why and How
So you’ve got a USB device or two that you want to share between multiple computers. Whether it’s a printer or a USB fish tank (yes, such a thing exists!), a USB peripheral switch will help you get everything connected.
A USB peripheral switch allows you to share a device (or many devices) between any number of computers. When one computer needs to use the device, the switch connects the two for a flawless, reliable connection.
USB peripheral switches are great because they are inexpensive compared to alternatives such as device servers, and many of them even perform automatic switching.
The most simple switch we carry at Sewell Direct is the 2×1 manual USB peripheral switch. The first number (”2″) represents the number of computers that can be connected to the switch. The last number (”1″) represents how many devices can be connected. So in this case, you can connect two computers to one device. Because the switch is manual, you must push a button to toggle between which computer is connected to the device.
We also carry a 4×1 version of the same manual USB switch.
From there we get into automatic switches. Automatic switches do not require you to push a button to toggle between computers. The switch figures out which computer needs the device automatically and performs switching by itself - you never have to touch a thing.
Our most basic options are our 4×1 automatic USB peripheral switch and our 2×2 automatic USB peripheral switch. Whichever one you need depends on how many computers you need to connect to how many devices.