Share a external Drive over the network
So… Yesterday, I tried to be friendly and answer someone’s question in a forum:
How to share a USB or Firewire External Hard-drive over the Network
The sad part is, after typing down the instructions, making sure I’m not lying to this poor soul, and pressing the submit button, I was told to register.
Fair enough, registered, but up to now I still haven’t received a email from them, so Here’s the answer for those who needed to know:
How to share a USB or Firewire External Hard-drive over the Network
I am assuming you have Windows XP professional? (Home Edition will be different) Let me know, and I’ll update.
Click on My Computer
*Right Click on the drive
*Select Sharing and Security
Under the Sharing Tab which should now be open
* Select the option “Share This Folder”
* Provide it with a “Share Name” and a “Comment”
for this example we’ll call it ExternalDRV
* click Apply
* click O.K
To make sure it is being share you can do the following:
Start->Run->CMD
Type in “net share“:
C:\WINDOWS>net share
Share name Resource Remark
————————————————————-
D$ D:\ Default share
C$ C:\ Default share
ADMIN$ C:\WINDOWS Remote Admin
IPC$ Remote IPC
ExternalDRV
I:\
The command completed successfully.
————————————————————–
Someone can now connect to your external in the following two ways:
From their computer:
Click start->Run
Type in \\YourComputerName\ExternalDRV
———————————————————————————–
<gras>If it is in a work environment you might have problems connecting to it that way.</gras>
Firstly : If you are in a work environment ask your support team first, seriously, ask them first.
A workaround would be to find out your IP address:
Click start->Run-> type cmd, and then ipconfig
Now whoever wants to connect to your shared external drive can access it via your IP:
Lets say your IP is 10.24.106.67
Start->Run->
\\10.24.106.67\ExternalDRV
This would be a temporary solution as your IP will most likely change if you are not on a static IP address.
<gras>
PLEASE NOTE: </gras>
Although it is possible it is not really recommended as your Bottleneck will be the USB / firewire connection between your machine and the external drive.
I would suggest rather buying a Network Attached Storage External drive like the ones below:
The 1TB is a good size and they go from about $80 to $200+ (a $100 one should be fine)
NETGEAR SC101 Storage Central
* Price: $80
* Network attached ONLY (but at a great price) and
* only 100Mbps (which is pretty fast for any normal house usage, its fast trust me)
or
Western Digital My Book World Edition 1 TB Network Storage System
* Price : $214.99
* Network attached but can also connect via firewire cable
* Supports up to 1000Mbps transfer rates (but this depends if your machine’s and your network actually run’s at Giggabit Speeds (doubt it)
Both of them will come with software that is easy to configure and once its up and running you can simply access the shares or map to them. Another massive benefit is that it doesn’t require a PC / Mac to be switched on to access it.
