This article will deal with setting up external hard drives that are not considered to be Network Storage Devices (which have the necessary setup materials included). This article will provide information on how to set up a regular external hard drive with a USB port on the back and even PEN drives to your local network.
This provides a way to network a shared drive without a file server or an actual server, and also without the security risks involved in multiple file sharing. My situation was this: use one shared drive to allow multiple people on different OSes to connect at any time inside or outside the network for under $100.
I already had a 500 GB Seagate External HDD [$129.99] and a Linksys Wireless Router [~$50]. To make this work, all I needed was the Linksys Storage Link for USB 2.0 (2 ports) [~$75]
If you are wondering why you need the Linksys Storage link instead of simply buying a USB to Ethernet adapter, the external HDD will need a network device to provide IP and MAC addresses for it. The Storage link also comes preloaded with software that allows FTP and multiple user access.
Once you purchase the Storage Link, follow the instructions to install it. This usually means connecting it to your router, then connecting the external hard drive to the storage link and powering it on. You should now be able to login to the router and see the device as connected. Make a note of the IP address its provided. Normally the default will be under 100 to prevent conflicts with other systems on the network.
With the internal IP address, you can then login to the network storage link to view its admin panel. You will need to assign the storage link a static IP (instead of dynamic). This will prevent it from obtaining a new IP each time the device is turned off or a power failure happens, which will cause problems later on in the process. Within this control panel you should also have the option of creating users (which you need in order to log in to the drive), and you will need to convert the file system from FAT32 or NTFS to EXT3 if you plan on allowing multiple users to connect. If you use the same link device I used, users can also have there own private folders on the hard drive.
If you have a static IP address from your ISP, you can setup the drive to be an FTP server outside of the network. To do this, you will need to port forward on your router to the specific IP of the external hard drive. On your router admin panel, you should have an option or page that will allow port forwarding. Simply type in a port you would like such as 21 and place the internal IP of the network storage device as where to forward to.
Save the settings and try it out. Go to your external IP address in your browser or FTP client. Make sure to go to port 21. If you set up users, you should see a login prompt screen. Sign in with the user login details and you're done!
This article was originally published by CyberArmy.net in the CyberArmy Library.
|
|