As well as ordinary external hard disks that attach to computers through their USB sockets, it’s possible to buy network hard disks which plug into your router instead so they can be shared by all the computers on your home network.

Such disks, also known as Network Attached Storage (NAS) tend to be more expensive than ordinary models, and if you have already got a USB hard disk that works perfectly, Seagate’s Freeagent Dockstar will allow you to share it across a network.

It has a network socket for connecting to the home router and a docking slot that is specifically designed to fit one of Seagate’s own Freeagent Go hard disks.

It also has three USB sockets so hard disks from other manufacturers can be connected, as well as digital cameras and other devices. Any USB device that is plugged into the Dockstar is linked up to the network as well.

Setting up the Dockstar was nice and easy, although you will need access to the internet in order to make it work. The user has to activate the Dockstar by entering their email address and specifying a password on Seagate’s Dockstar website.

Once you have done this the contents of anything plugged into the Dockstar can be viewed from within a web browser, and you can transfer files to and from a computer using a web browser too.

Using the browser to view files also makes it possible to connect to the Dockstar over the internet to get access to files when you are not at home.

Alternatively, for a more conventional approach, there is a separate program that allows the user to view devices connected to the Dockstar on the desktop of your PC or Mac as though they were directly connected to the computer itself.

Unlike a standard network hard disk you need to have the software running to access the disk through Windows and you cannot access it through a media streamer.

Some people might prefer to buy a brand new NAS drive, but if you have already got a USB hard disk that you would like to connect to a home network then the Dockstar is a useful and affordable product.