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Set up external USB hard drive as shared network drive

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Set up external USB hard drive as shared network drive

This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.

cranewing

2019-07-25 13:07:34

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Registered: 2019-07-25

Set up external USB hard drive as shared network drive

2019-07-25 13:07:34

Model: Archer C6

Hardware Version: V2

Firmware Version:

Hello,

I have an Archer C6V2 wireless router. There are several devices on the network: one desktop running Windows 10, two laptops with Win 10, and one Mac laptop running MacOS Mojave. The desktop has two 8TB hard drives attached to it. One of the drives, G:, is the drive I would like to make a network file sharing drive that anyone on the network can access. I don't want to attach it to the wireless router but leave its USB connection to the desktop. How do I make it a shared network drive? The instructions under the knowledge base didn't seem that clear.

Another thing we like to do is access each other's computers on the network to share files that way, too. How can we do that? Thank you for any help given.

3 Reply

Carl

2019-07-25 16:32:32

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Re:Set up external USB hard drive as shared network drive

2019-07-25 16:32:32

@cranewing

That is not how a network share works. The Desktop would have to be connected to the router either by Wireless or ethernet. Once you do this other devices on the network should be able to see it and access the resources on that drive. The other option would to take that drive out of the desktop and put it into an enclosure or dock and connect that to the router via USB. From there you can turn on the USB share and then depending on how you set that up your devices can access the network share locally or in some setups remotely.

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cranewing

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2019-07-25 18:33:59 - last edited 2019-07-25 18:35:39

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Re:Re:Set up external USB hard drive as shared network drive

2019-07-25 18:33:59 - last edited 2019-07-25 18:35:39

The desktop where the USB hard drives are attached is connected to the TP Link router by ethernet cable. I made the external hard drives shared with Windows 10. The problem is that the other computers can't see the desktop or each other. Under Windows 10 Explorer, when you look at "Network", none of the other computers on the network even show up.

Tony

2019-07-25 21:51:19

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Re:Set up external USB hard drive as shared network drive

2019-07-25 21:51:19

@cranewing

If you are going to look to share files over the network it might be worth looking into NAS systems.

As far as what to do in the mean time if you want to leave the USB drives connected to the computer you can map drives:

Windows:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026635/windows-map-a-network-drive

Mac:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204445

You pretty much create a direct short cut to the drive on your network.

Set up external USB hard drive as shared network drive

Set up external USB hard drive as shared network drive

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