Networking assistance

[kpack08]

Hey guys,
I purchased an external hard drive a couple months ago. 160GB at a really good price I am happy with the purchase. I use it to back up all the files from computers on my network. The only problem is that I have to connect each computer individually to the hard drive to save the files to it which gets a little bit annoying at times especially when you need to save or retrieve files regularly. K back to the hard drive it uses a fire wire cable connection that connects to the laptops on my network. And I was trying to figure out a process to make my tasks a little bit easer and also for others on my network as far as accessing and saving files to the external hard drive. I was thinking since my network is wireless may be I can some how link the hard drive to the router. Kind of like a personal network server. That sound good but not sure if it’s possible but I am excited about this project.

Do you guys/girls have any ideas or advice that will help me accomplish this? Any advice will be appreciated
Thanks in advance.
Kpack

[kpack08]

Someone pls respond. Tell me if my idea is do able or not.

[nanosani]

I also had that problem with my backups but now I have purchased an external USB casing for the backup hard drive. So I can take it on or off whenever I want. I've heard about the network hard drives that are standalone but they're way too expensive.

[kpack08]

thanks for the info.

[Stylish]

Two ways.

1) Plug it into PC A and have it share the drive.
2) Buy a network enclosure.

Here are two such network enclosures:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145385
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817348011

[DimaYasny]

bad idea. backing up lots of info on wifi is a long and excruciating process.
on a wired network though, it would be very easy - just connect the hdd to a pc, share it, and dump whatever you need to backup through the network to that share

[kpack08]

How does the network enclosure work. Matter fact how will it work with my network? I use a fire wire connection from my external hard drive to my notebook.

[Stylish]

The enclosures I linked are wired. You would plug them in, via Ethernet, to your router/gateway/switch/hub. If you are merely networking off of a wireless access point (AP), then things are a tad harder. Not sure if they have wired ports or not.

I do not own nor operate a network enclosure, so I do not have first hand experience. Sorry.

[DimaYasny]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nas
this is the enclosure, to make things simple

[Stylish]

Actually, I forgot to take into account your mention of the firewire. The enclosures are for internal drives to make them external.

My apologies for the confusion.

Sounds like your solution is to plug external drive into PC A, via firewire, and have it share the drive for the others.

Dima: Your wikipedia link is incorrect and NAS does not really make this topic any simpler.

[DimaYasny]

external hdd enclosure connected to ethernet is exactly NAS.
maybe you're confusing NAS with SAN?

[kpack08]

Ok thanks for the details. You've helped me alot. I also wanted to find out what exactly is a network enclosure? and how does it work? what is its pourpose in the network?

[Stylish]

Let's get one thing straight before this conversation explodes.

NAS = Network Attached Storage. It is a division/group/classification of network devices. This can include network enclosures, but it often relates to much larger systems.

The enclosures that were initially suggested on page 1 were external enclosures with networking capabilities. They were created to house (enclose) an internal IDE harddrive.

For the enclosures previously linked, you would take an internal IDE, slide it into the enclosure, and then connect it to your network via an [wired] ethernet cable. The enclosure would then have an internal system or software or something which knew how to handle itself as a fileserver on said network. The user manual would give more info on this specific behavior.

If you are looking for a beefier attached storage solution, check ouf offerings from Buffalo Tech (?) (I forget actualy products) and the specific product called "ReadyNAS" from Infrant.

[DimaYasny]

no need for a conversation to explode. any type of storage accessible only through network, and only with the standard LAN means (smb/cifs/nfs/ipx/nwd7 etc) is NAS. a file server is technically NAS as well, but it is accessible from the server itself without the use of ethernet, so it doesn't exactly qualify.
one thing you shouldn't confuse NAS with is SAN, which uses scsi protocol instead of tcp/ip or ipx/spx, except for the iSCSI devices which are something of a combination.

[DimaYasny]

Ok thanks for the details. You've helped me alot. I also wanted to find out what exactly is a network enclosure? and how does it work? what is its pourpose in the network?

to make it simple, a metwork enclosure is a box with a hard drive in it, which has a network card, just like a computer. you plug it into the network (your switch or router) and access it through the network. through the network you can copy files to and from that device. this is of course an oversimplified explanation, from here you can start thinking into adding more than one hard drive, or using it for more than just storage

[kpack08]

I would like to connect that router to that hard drive how do I do that

[kpack08]

I need to connect my acomdata external hard drive using a fire wire connector to my wireless netgear router. How do I do that.

[jbennet]

not possible

[kpack08]

what products out there do you recommed for my situation. This is waht I would like to have on my network wireless printing, network storage for saving files and also hosting files. Also I like the Idea of getting somethinng that is compatiable so I can build on top of it or eved add more stuff to it if nned in the futhure.

[jbennet]

Um, a cheap computer?