Share external drive with network PCs?

Question

Share external drive with network PCs?

Hi all-

Figured I'd ask here as there are probably more people with an interest in sharing external drives...

Anyway: I'm on a network, but need to set up a dedicated hard drive to share with 1 other person with a PC. The drive will hold all kinds of working files, and we need to be able to open and edit documents from this drive.

Been reading around, but for some reason this task seems harder than I thought it would be...

What's the best way to do this? If necessary, we can set up a drive on his computer.

Thanks!!

Andrew

Posted on Mar 26, 2015 1:12 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,541 points

Mar 26, 2015 6:57 PM in response to The Blue Chunks

Both users should connect to the share with the credentials of a user on the server who is the owner of the shared folder.

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Answer 2

Mar 27, 2015 7:31 AM in response to Linc Davis

Hi Linc-

thanks for the help.

Unfortunately, I'm not really following - and still have questions -

1) Does the external drive need to be formatted NTSF?

2) Can the drive be connected to either computer?

3) What do you mean by the "credentials of a user on the server" ? This sounds like I need to give my credentials to the other guy I want to share the folder with... that's not going to happen. Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

Not sure if I'm on the right track here..

cheers

Andrew

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Answer 3

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,541 points

Mar 27, 2015 8:33 AM in response to The Blue Chunks

1. No.

2. Yes.

3. Create a new sharing-only user and make it the owner of the files. This will work only if both real users access the files via the network. Otherwise you have a more complicated problem.

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Answer 4

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Mar 27, 2015 9:17 AM in response to The Blue Chunks

Find a Mac friendly NAS device connected to your LAN switch over gigabit.

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