How do you network an external hard drive? External hard drives provide great storage and backup options for your computers, but using external hard drives on multiple computers can be a daunting prospect. Most external hard drives are USB 2.0 devices and don't support network file sharing. However, some external hard drives are capable of network file sharing.
Look for a NAS Server
The Western Digital MyBook World Edition NAS server provides an easy way to network external hard drives. You simply plug external hard drives into your router, power them up and run the installation CD on each computer connected to the network. The software included with these external hard drives walks you through the process of setting them up as network drives. It alsosaves you the trouble of manually assigning a drive letter and mapping a file path. If you're worried about your technical proficiency or the steps involved in sharing external hard drives on a network, choose a NAS server will simplify the process.
Assigning a Drive Letter
In order to easily access the contents of your external drives, you'll need to assign a drive letter and map a file path. For Windows PCs, start by going to My Documents, then access the Tools menu at the top of the window. The first option under the Tools menu is Map Network Drive; select this option. Click Browse to find your external hard drive, and you can then use the Drive dropdown menu to select a drive letter.
It's best to choose a letter that's several letters removed from your current drives. If you select the next available drive letter to network external hard drives, you'll have trouble if you try to connect something locally in the future, like a GPS unit. When you connect local external hard drives, your computer will try to assign the next available local drive letter and it will conflict with the external drives. As a general rule, shift your choice five letters away; for example, if your current drives end at H, mapping your externals to the letters N through Z should avoid any conflicts, as you'll have five open letters for your iPod, thumb drives, a GPS and a digital camera.
Sharing Files
Depending on how your external hard drives are configured, you may need to set them up to share files. If the external drives are connected directly to the network, you probably won't need to do anything special to share files. However, if you are using an old computer connected to the network as a dedicated file server, you may need to configure the device for file sharing. In the My Computer menu of the file sharing server, right click on an external hard drive's letter and select the Share dialog box. From there, you can set up the computer to share the drive or only specific folders. You can also control access and permissions for file sharing.
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