Shared device refers to a device that is not used temporarily or for a short time, and is used separately by everyone. Users may not own the property right, but they can temporarily have the right to use it. The emergence of Shared devices is to improve the utilization of devices. In a Shared device, multiple processes can easily and directly access a Shared device at the same time.
This allocation is different from exclusive devices (such as printers, card readers, tape drives, etc.), which can only be used exclusively by one job at a time.