How to setup a network drive

Doublespresso

I'm considering buying an external USB HDD so that I can set it it up as a network drive for storing all files from all PCS connected in the network.

1) How do I set this up (for example to designate drive "Z" for this on all PCs), should I connect this to the router (but my router hasn't got USB)

2) Can each user have their own password protected Folder within the drive

3) Will I be bale to access it from a remote PC using a utility such as "logmein"?

Any other tips or recommendation of hardware/software appreciated.

Thanks

jamalfatty

To do all that you would need to look at getting a NAS (Network Attached Storage) rather than a USB HDD which wont offer that level of functionality.

I've recently purchased a Netgear ReadyNAS DUO which does pretty much all you want below, expect to pay around the £100-£150 mark something to do all this.

John_Gray

Doublespresso wrote: »

I'm considering buying an external USB HDD so that I can set it it up as a network drive for storing all files from all PCS connected in the network.

1) How do I set this up (for example to designate drive "Z" for this on all PCs), should I connect this to the router (but my router hasn't got USB)

2) Can each user have their own password protected Folder within the drive

3) Will I be able to access it from a remote PC using a utility such as "logmein"?

Any other tips or recommendation of hardware/software appreciated.

Thanks

You don't say which operating system you're using!

1) rather like having a shared USB printer you'd have to have the PC to which your external USB drive is connected on all the time, so that other PCs can get to it. You'd have to set up sharing on that PC, and share the root of the drive.

2) Yes, provided you are familiar with share and/or file permissions, and the PC on which the external hard drive is mounted does not run XP Home.
Alternatively, why not set up sharenames each pointing to a different folder on the hard drive for each of the PCs?

3) Quite probably - you certainly can on Microsoft Remote Desktop. provided you can get to it through the firewall, and so on...

Doublespresso

sorry, I'm using Windows XP Media Centre and it will be on all the time:

IS there a step by step guide on how to:

- Map the drive
- How to set up file permissions or use sharenames as described by John Gray above
- How to use MS Remote Desktop from a remote location.

Thanks again

John_Gray

I can give you some pointers about what I would do, but YMMV!

• Assume that the drive is seen by the XP Media Centre PC as E: (you can change this in Disk Manager if you like).
• Open Windows Explorer, navigate to the external drive, select it and right-click on it
• From the drop-down menu select Sharing and Security, and click on the Sharing tab
• If you want to share out the whole drive, you might as well call it E$ (the administrative sharename) as any other name, so click on the radio button to "Share this folder". The downside is that you can't assign share permissions.
• Alternatively, give it another sharename like Ext_Drv, and then you can set up share permissions for various users.

I haven't bothered with the Security tab, because that is even more complicated, and may not be necessary.

An alternative is to make one folder/directory on the hard drive for each PC which you wish to back up, like Bkp_PCOne, Bkp_PCTwo, and so on, and assign a share name and share permissions to each, to enable the user of PCOne to access the corresponding Bkp_PCOne share/folder/directory, and so on. (You have to do this by user, not by PCname).

To access its backup share from PCOne, you would do Tools -> Map Network Drive or in a Command Prompt window, do
NET USE Z: \\XPMedCent\Bkp_PCOne /P:Y
from PCOne, and so on.
You can use Z: from each PC, even though you are pointing to a different sharename from each PC.

That is a brief skate-through - share and folder permissions require some experience, though...

Accessing the XP Media PC and the hard drive remotely will (probably) require you to set up a (software) VPN between the remote PC (which again can't use XP Home!) and the Media Centre PC, and then use Microsoft Remote Desktop (find it as MSTSC.EXE in C:\Windows\System32). But I think I've said enough for one night!

Doublespresso

jamalfatty wrote: »

To do all that you would need to look at getting a NAS (Network Attached Storage) rather than a USB HDD which wont offer that level of functionality.

I've recently purchased a Netgear ReadyNAS DUO which does pretty much all you want below, expect to pay around the £100-£150 mark something to do all this.

I've looked into this and the prices are all above £150 but to my surprise this is EXCLUDING the drives...

Given that this is practically the cost of a new PC, isn't it better value to go via the USB external drive route and set it up as suggested above?

I appreciate more comments before I decide what to buy.
Thanks

John_Gray

There are (to me) three factors: convenience, speed and price.

• It's easier to have a self-contained ethernet-connected box which is its own computer than an external USB hard drive which has to be connected to a PC all the time
• Ethernet can go up to 1 Gbps (NICs permitting), whereas USB2 is restricted to 480 kbps (if memory serves). Time for USB3, soon!
• The downside is that NAS boxes are usually at least twice the price of external hard drives with the same capacity

It depends what views you take on these factors. I've got both at home - but I'm prototyping storage solutions for work!

jamalfatty

There are plenty of others available, but if you take the one I mentioned above, you can pick it up for under £150, and until 30th September you can send off to get a free 500gb hard drive

http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?q=readynas+duo&oe=utf-8&hl=en&cid=15653112704935392752&sa=title#scoring=p

dccarm

Doublespresso wrote: »

I've looked into this and the prices are all above £150 but to my surprise this is EXCLUDING the drives...

Given that this is practically the cost of a new PC, isn't it better value to go via the USB external drive route and set it up as suggested above?

I appreciate more comments before I decide what to buy.
Thanks

Cheapest NAS on ebuyer is only £75 here - definitely the route you want to go down (although not neccesarily this model!). I have a Maxtor Shared Storage NAS, and it was pretty easy to set up.