NAS newbie - basic setup questions.

[Digsy]

I've just got my 1TB NAS up and running. I'm completely new to this kind of thing. I think I've got it working, but I wanted to check with the more techy types that there isn't something basic I've missed.

 

My NAS has a single volume on it which sometimes appears to be called "C" or "VOLUME". I'm not sure if you can create more than one volume or rename the current one, but I have just accepted the default. I have created two shares within this volume called "My_Documents" and "My_Media". These are mapped to drive letters Z: and M: respectively within Windows Explorer.

 

I am the only user on my PC so I have created both shares with public access. The odd thing is that when I first mapped them to the drive letters Windows still asked me for a username and password. I typed in the NAS admin username and password and it seemed happy, but I'm unsure why it needed these to access a public share?

 

Eventually, I will set up individual user accounts, with home areas and the like. It isn't mentioned in the manual anywhere, but I assume that I would create a user profile in Windows, activate having to type in a username and password to log into Windows, and then create identically named accounts on the NAS?

[JustGav]

Which brand of NAS? Also even with public shares it still uses a username even if it is just 'guest'.

 

As you have said, your best approach is to create a username on the NAS identical to your windows username and use that.

 

Remember a NAS isn't like a USB hard drive, it is designed for multi user access hence has authentication.

[Digsy]

It’s a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo with 2x 1TB drives installed (RAIDed).

 

 

So when I mapped the public shares to network drives, I could have used any username at all, and left the password field blank and it would still have connected? I'll try that (if I ever get home again!).

 

 

Yeah, I know that using NAS is a load more complex than a local drive. Previously I have used two local drives (not RAIDed) and a backup script to copy important files between the two. However, I'm about to set up media-streaming around the house to it seemed like a good idea to move to centralised storage for everything. At the moment, though, I don't really need to control user access becaue I'm the only user.

 

 

Another thing I've noticed is that when I'm logged into the NAS as admin using its web interface I can see the shares I create instantly. However it can take several minutes for them to be available to map to a drive through Windows Explorer. Is this normal?