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Long winded networking question

langers_2004

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Posted October 19, 2011 at 8:33PM

Hi all,

I have a networking problem.

I have just bought an external drive and connected it to my home hub 3, however it is too slow so thinking of another route. I'll mention it now, but i also want the drive to connect to my samsung bluray player. Currently this is achieved using mezzmo media server on my laptop. The hub only has one usb port so i currently have to swap my usb hard drives over each time i need the other one.

Anyway im looking for the best way to achieve my network, which consists of. one Mac, One pc, ps3 and nokia n8 that are wireless and xbox that is wired. I want a drive that is accesible by all of the devices, although the ps3 and xbox really dont need to.

I was thinking that i should grab my old desktop and put this in another room. It has an ide hard drive in there already and i could plug in both my external drives to it. This would amount to around 1.6tb storage then. I would need to buy a wireless ethernet card for the comp though.

Would this be the best solution?

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mgmcc

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Posted October 20, 2011 at 9:33AM

"This would amount to around 1.6tb storage then. I would need to buy a wireless ethernet card for the comp though. Would this be the best solution?"

Doing that would restrict the access speed to the drives to that of a wireless network connection. For large file transfers this might be frustratingly slow. Also bear in mind that, with a wireless connection, the router's bandwidth is shared by all devices that connect wirelessly, unlike wired connections where each enjoys the full speed of the router's network switch - 100Mbps (or 1000Mpbs with Gigabit).

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langers_2004

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Posted October 20, 2011 at 10:21AM

I dont have to worry about the wireless connection so much as it will only ever be one device connected wirelessly, and the server type desktop that im hoping to create.

So would the connection for transfering files be really slow if it were 'one to one' across wireless?

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mgmcc

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Posted October 20, 2011 at 1:05PM

The wireless speed will depend on the protocol used. 802.11g has a nominal speed of 54Mbps which in practice will be closer to 30Mbps. 802.11n, depending on hardware, has a nominal speed of 150 or 300Mbps, so again assume about 60% of that in practice. This compares with USB 2.0 at 480Mbps.

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langers_2004

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Posted October 21, 2011 at 12:11PM

Ok thanks.

So my plan will work then? The connection speed will be fine i think.

What do i have to do to the desktop to make it work like i mentioned above.

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mgmcc

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Posted October 21, 2011 at 1:36PM

You would need to install a Wireless Network Adapter (PCI card or USB) in the PC and connect wirelessly with it to the router, using WPA/WPA2 encryption. Then set the folders/drives in the PC that you want to have available over the network as "shared" by right clicking and selecting the sharing option (the name of the option varies slightly depending on the version of Windows).

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langers_2004

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Posted October 21, 2011 at 1:47PM

Will that allow usb drives to also be shared?

I was hoping to remove windows and run some form of server software as windows is soo large!

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mgmcc

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Posted October 21, 2011 at 3:12PM

"Will that allow usb drives to also be shared?"

In Windows, "Yes", because Windows Explorer doesn't differentiate between an internal hard drive and one connected externally by USB. I can't say whether the same would be true if you install alternative server software.

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