Can I connect Surface RT and PC with USB cable?

Anonymous
2012-11-30T00:08:13+00:00

I have a Toshiba Thrive running Android. I can connect it to my PC with a USB cable and access files on my Thrive on the PC. The PC treats the Thrive as a hard drive. Can I connect my Surface in the same way? I have tried and the PC does not appear to see the Surface.

This is a pain, one of the reasons I bought the Surface was to be able to do this type of hard connection and not have to use "iTunes" or the Cloud.

Surface | Other

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Anonymous
2013-03-05T02:57:40+00:00

Greetings SaeedR_706,

That is a good question, however I would suggest rather then using the USB cable, to transfer files over your WiFi network to a shared folder on your Windows 7 Laptop.

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Anonymous
2012-12-05T00:46:39+00:00

Hello Rrccw,

No, you cannot connect the Surface to the PC via USB. However, you can setup Shared folderson your PC. Once you have that, have the Surface connect to the same network via WiFi and then go into Network from the Desktop app, select your PC and then see the Shared Folders. From there, the Surface should have Read/Write access if you gave the permissions on the PC.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-01-07T23:04:35+00:00

    Just curious - what "super obvious" security risk could acting as a USB client add on a device that can already act as host to a USB drive?

    Err...it means anyone can copy anything off of or on to your device, with zero security.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-01-07T23:03:43+00:00

    Again, overall it's much, MUCH more capable than any other tablets (save full Windows 8 tablets).  I don't see how you can complain about something so minor, when it also applies to any normal PC, and there are all kinds of alternative, largely superior methods of accomplishing the same thing.

    Regarding Wifi, how often are you moving 14GB of photos around? 

    Either way, I'd guess the storage speed of the flash is more of a bottleneck than Wifi.  My iOS devices are nowhere near the speed USB 2 can provide, and my Android tablet is slower still.  I saw write speeds on my SD card in my Surface of about...hmm...can't remember if it was 5+ or more like 10+MB/s, but it was certainly nothing unusually slow.

    At any rate, I regularly copy huge amounts over my network, and have no desire to resort to physically plugging computers in to each other, nor using an external drive.

    As Dominic said, and something I hadn't even thought about regarding this, there would be huge security implications for doing what you're wanting, were it even possible. 

    I know if I could make my Nexus have real, full USB and networking like the Surface and the tradeoff was losing the ability to use it as a dumb, slow drive, I'd make that trade in a heartbeat.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-01-07T22:55:59+00:00

    Just curious - what "super obvious" security risk could acting as a USB client add on a device that can already act as host to a USB drive?

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