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Eltima is known for its software products which include the USB Network Gate app that not only works on Windows but also Mac, Linux and Android platforms. This remote USB tool lets you access your connected USB devices over the Internet or LAN easily.

The USB Network Gate works by first installing the app on PC's that would act as the server and client. The server PC is plugged in with any supported USB device while the client PC is used to remotely access the USB device that is physically connected to the server PC. The USB Network Gate app provides an interface to control between these devices when connected to the network. To see which devices and systems are supported by the app, refer to this Eltima product page.

If using Remote Desktop Connection or a virtual machine software or blade server, the USB Network Gate also offers you a convenient way to link up with your USB peripherals over these platforms.

To see how the USB Network Gate works, we downloaded the app from the Eltima online web store and ran it on a Windows PC. At the same time we also made sure that the PC was connected to the local network.

The app first prompts you to select a language and accept the license agreement.

You will then need to select the folder path where you want to install the app.

You can also choose to only connect to USB devices or also share USB devices with other computers through the app.

Once the installation is done, you will need to enter the license code to use the full version or you can opt for the trial version first.

The USB Network Gate app now opens to display its main explorer window. Since we have previously selected to enable sharing USB devices, the Local USB devices tab shows the USB devices that are connected to the PC that you can share with other users. Here we selected the Kingston DataTraveler microDuo 3C flash drive identified as "DT microDuo 3C" and clicked the Share button to start the sharing process.

You can also stop sharing your USB device at any time by simply clicking the Unshare button.

Using another Windows PC with the USB Network Gate app already installed, we were able to see the Kingston DataTraveler microDuo 3C  as shared earlier appear as "DT microDuo 3C" in the Remote USB devices tab.

Once we clicked the Connect button, the app will start to connect to the Kingston drive attached to the local PC. When connected successfully, the drive could be seen showing up as a USB device on the remote PC. We had no problem accessing all the drive's contents and can confirm that the drive works just fine remotely using the USB Network Gate app.

We then connected to a shared USB on another PC to see how fast the Kingston drive can transfer data over the network. 

We have selected to move a 2GB file from the Kingston drive to the shared USB over different network speeds. On a slow network, we could see that the file was being transferred slowly at a rate of 705 KB/s over a duration of 1 hour and 10 minutes. 

However when connected to a faster network, we were able to quickly transfer the same 2GB file at 4.84 MB/s in just about 6 minutes.

By comparison, it took less than a minute to move the same 2GB file when connected through local USB. Given that it took around 6 minutes when using fast network USB access, it doesn't appear to give much lag when reading/writing a large file via the USB Network Gate app (make sure a high speed network is being connected).   

At the same time we also connected to a OnePlus phone, Dell wireless mouse, and wired keyboard without any lag using the USB Network Gate.