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i have a Welland Net share NAS enclosure and 80 seagate hard disk. we run a small office with 5 computers on the local area network and 1 computer who will access the data remotely, we want to share our client folders and database on the NAS.

Do i need to run Samba? the NAS admin page had a SMB file server option and a FTP option - which would be easier to manage?

5 computers are running XP SP3 and 1 is running vista sp1.

many thanks if you can help i am at the very edge of my knowledge!!!!

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3 Answers

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I would enable SMB. If the data doesn't need any access control and you don't have a domain set up (which I doubt you do for only 5 machines) you can create a logon script and put it in the user's startup folder to map in on startup. If you wanted to map the drive as X: every time a user logs in you would do it like this:

net use x: \\RemoteDeviceName\ShareName

This is assuming that there is no access control on the device.

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no there is only the default admin access control on the device but we were going to add password protection to some of the files and possibly only allow access from a certain IP address for the remote user. – Sally Jul 23 '09 at 4:14
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Both SMB or FTP would require you to manage users on the NAS device. I suspect, however, that your users will be more familiar with "Shared Folders" and would welcome the relatively familiar interface. Unless there are more variables at play, I would suggest configuring SMB rather than FTP.

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Thank you - yes they are familiar with using shared folders and we are trying to upgrade/forward proof a little, but have not got the money for a dedicated server. no there are no there are no other variables at play - just file storage and access is all we need - and some security on it. SO if i am configuring for SMB i do need to download something like samba and then upload it as "firmware" through the NAS html interface? – Sally Jul 23 '09 at 4:01
Check the documentation for your NAS. Assuming it says it supports windows filesharing it does SMB. SAMBA is the Linux/Unix implementation of SMB allowing them to use Windows file sharing features. – MDMarra Jul 23 '09 at 4:34
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In order to have files shared through Windows without the use of an additional application, you would want to use Samba, which is the Unix/Linux implementation of Microsoft's SMB file sharing protocol.

In order to access these files, you will need to access the device by going to the following path in Windows Explorer:

\\foobar\sharename

Where foobar is either the IP address or DNS\NetBIOS name of the device, and sharename is the name of the directory being shared on the device.

If you enabled FTP, you would need to use an additional 3rd party program such as Filezilla to copy files from the NAS to your local computer. (Technically, Windows has FTP clients built into Windows Explorer, but they are rather awful, and the command line one is not for the faint of heart.)

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I think you're leaving out a \. it's \\RemoteMachine\ShareName – MDMarra Jul 23 '09 at 4:01
Thank you - i have not yet enabled either SMB or FTP - didnt want to start out wrong! yes i have had to deal with the windows FTP bungle before with our webserver - it sucked :) and so as above i would download samba and then upload it to the NAS - does it install itself? – Sally Jul 23 '09 at 4:04
MarkM: Formatting removed one of the backslashes. Sally: I honestly could not tell you. I am not familiar with your NAS device. – phuzion Jul 23 '09 at 4:09
phuzion, thank you for your time and answer regardless, i appreciate it – Sally Jul 23 '09 at 4:16
Just one more little thing, SAMBA is the linux/unix implementation of SMB. SMB is the Microsoft protocol – MDMarra Jul 23 '09 at 4:36
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