Sharing HDD via Wifi - Questions

NavyLCDR · 31 Oct 2016

Craige said:

Thx for explaining, I wonder now if I do buy a NAS how would I be able to connect it to my Desktop directly - I assume I have to connect it via desktops ethernet port only, Any other ways ?

That would depend on the NAS hardware. Some NAS devices also have two-way USB ports that allow it to connect via USB to a computer just like any external hard drive. Some NAS devices have only one-way USB ports that only allow connecting a USB flash drive or hard drive in order to copy their contents onto the NAS. Some NAS devices don't have any USB capability. Like bro67 stated, there isn't much to gain by connecting the NAS directly to the desktop if you have a decent network.

Craige said:

Next, if I do connect NAS via my routers ethernet port and say I am downloading a file from internet and directly saving into my NAS, what transfer speed can I expect in that case ?

As fast as the file comes in from the internet. Your internet connection will be the limiting factor unless both you and the location you are downloading from have phenomenal internet speeds.

Craige said:

Also, can u assist me regarding password management as mentioned in post #6 and with router buying as mentioned below :)

The router will manage passwords/access to your WiFi network. The router will also manage passwords/access to devices connected to it's USB port if you decide to go that way. If you go with a NAS, the passwords/access to the files on the NAS are managed by the NAS device.

Craige said:

Do I give more weightage to usb port OR antennas for clear ability to stream Full HD movies across my house (700 Sq.ft)

That depends on a lot of factors, but you have to remember there are two parts to the WiFi connection. There is the access point (router) and there is the network adapter in the computer. The WiFi connection will only be good as the weakest of the two. Unless you have great dual band network adapters in the desktop and laptop, your WiFi will be limited at the computer end and not by the router.

Big question - where is the desktop computer located in reference to the router? Can you run an ethernet cable between the desktop and router? That would not only make the connection between the router and desktop many times faster, but would also increase your bandwidth available to the WiFi clients because the traffic going to/from the desktop would be via wired ethernet. The same benefit is true by connecting a NAS to the router via ethernet cable - it reduces the streaming traffic over WiFi in half because the file gets sent to the router over wired ethernet instead of WiFi.

Craige · 01 Nov 2016

NavyLCDR said:

That would depend on the NAS hardware. Some NAS devices also have two-way USB ports that allow it to connect via USB to a computer just like any external hard drive. Some NAS devices have only one-way USB ports that only allow connecting a USB flash drive or hard drive in order to copy their contents onto the NAS. Some NAS devices don't have any USB capability. Like bro67 stated, there isn't much to gain by connecting the NAS directly to the desktop if you have a decent network.

Can u suggest me multiple good options in NAS manufacturers. I only knew WD to which you have linked earlier.
Also, everytime I turn on my computer I don't want to enter password for my local account - Do u know how to avoid this and login directly ?

Craige · 01 Nov 2016

Check this product:

Can I use this to plug into my routers Ethernet port and plug my external HHD ?
Product link: http://www.weiku.com/products/980111...et_Router.html

NavyLCDR · 01 Nov 2016

No.

bro67 · 01 Nov 2016

Craige said:

Check this product:
Can I use this to plug into my routers Ethernet port and plug my external HHD ?
Product link: http://www.weiku.com/products/980111...et_Router.html

No. It is made for specialized uses where you would need to plug in a USB device at a RJ-45 port, so that you can connect it within the length without a power booster.

I love the Synology DIS216+2 NAS that I have. I have two 1TB Seagate Constellation drives in it and the Fantom USB/eSATA for backup. I also am running PLEX on it as stated before.

I did find out last night that the firmware upgrade for the Engenius EAP1750H with POE, is now capable of 3 2.4GHz Channels and also 3 5GHz Channels and you can tweak how much load can be placed on the 5GHz, before others are placed on the 2.4. Since updating it last night, speeds have stayed solid and actually has been a lot faster in moving my Time Machine backup from my MacBook.

Planning a network is like building a house. If you mess it up the first time, it will haunt you. If you take your time and build it to be future proof and not lock yourself into a all-in-one device like a Wifi/4-port switch/Router.

NavyLCDR · 02 Nov 2016

Craige said:

Can u suggest me multiple good options in NAS manufacturers. I only knew WD to which you have linked earlier.

I have a manufacturer refurbished D-Link DNS-325 that I purchased from eBay with no hard drives. I put two 3 TB hard drives in it for a total of 6 TB storage.

Craige said:

Also, everytime I turn on my computer I don't want to enter password for my local account - Do u know how to avoid this and login directly ?

Sign in User Account Automatically at Windows 10 Startup - Windows 10 Forums

jimbo45 · 02 Nov 2016

Hi there.

@Craige

My suggestion with these things would be to use an Ethernet-->wifi Bridge. The advantage is that if you use a Router this way it will generally have a better wifi signal reception than typical wifi cards and you can use faster 5GHZ Wifi even if the original device doesn't support it. Another plus is in general the Bridge method will be FULL DUPLEX whereas the Wifi card will normally be HALF DUPLEX which on a server will really limit speed.

If you can get around 600 - 700 Mib/s over the wifi part of the connection (Max for 5GHZ is around 1.2 Gib/s - on domestic grade stuff you won't get anywhere near that) then you should get HDD transfer rate of around 18 Mb/s (mega BYTES / sec) so still slow but perfectly OK so long as you aren't regularly transferring large files (> few GB).

It really depends on what you want your NAS to do - for basic multi-media serving etc the Bridge method is more than fast enough and saves having LAN cable all over the place.

For the NAS itself I'd advise getting something like a small Cube type server with RAID and install one of the excellent Linux distros - say CENTOS / SUSE / MINT /UBUNTU etc --one of those 4 though are good and stable --remember the server normally is available 24 hrs a day so you don't want repeated boots - and servers are designed for long running.

Run the thing headless (don't have a monitor on it) -- if you install VNC / XRDP you can access it from a Windows laptop / desktop via RDP / TightVNC or whatever.

I prefer running an OS like Linux on a NAS -- much easier to maintain and more flexible than using something proprietary like QNAP and of course a lot cheaper. Start with at least 2 HDD's on the NAS and have a RAID controller.

The Bridge works as follows : NAS-->Ethernet-->Bridge router-->Wifi-->Your ISP router/box-->Internet/LAN/WAN.

NAS accessible via Ethernet or Wifi depending on where you've placed your NAS and nr of ports on the Bridge router --usually 4.

Definitely go for a SERVER rather than use a desktop for the NAS -- Servers are designed for continuous running and will have better cooling and power operation. One thing though with servers -- remember most of them take a lot longer to boot than a typical laptop etc -- that's because a server goes through a lot more checks at startup - and in the BIOS there's usually a whole slew of more options.

If you do use a LINUX type OS remember to install SAMBA as a package for network sharing HDD's. The HDD's can be formatted with any file system you care to use -- IMO the fastest and safest are either EXT4 or XFS. Via SAMBA your Windows machines will have no problem reading / writing to these.

For MOVIES etc setup PLEX on your server -- I suspect your pixellation / other problems are due to some sort of transcoding taking place. With PLEX MKV / MP4 /AVI movies don't get transcoded - some H265 stuff might but if you set subtitles to automatic and enable direct play transcoding in PLEX can be avoided. You need to give the buffer size a large value too. PLEX can handle loads of users too --it's designed as a multi-media server. !!!

Read the PLEX website on how to set it all up --installs easily on Linux (and Windows too) - you only need the FREE parts. Also if you have something like GOOGLECAST or an Amazon Firestick / TV box then you can serve your own movies / streams to remote TV's (so long as they have an HDMI input).

On your client VLC is good for playing the movies or these days the built in Windows Movie player actually is OK too !!!!! -- don't bother with the older Windows media player.

Cheers
jimbo

NavyLCDR · 02 Nov 2016

jimbo45 said:

Hi there.

@Craige

My suggestion with these things would be to use an Ethernet-->wifi Bridge.

He has a 700 sq ft. house (post #9). We know you love your WiFi bridges, jimbo, but not everyone needs one. Especially when the vast majority of the streaming traffic will be one way over the WiFi once you connect the NAS to the router via ethernet cable, then at most a 100' WiFi connection to the desktop or the laptop.

Craige · 02 Nov 2016

bro67 said:

I also am running PLEX on it as stated before.

jimbo45 said:

For MOVIES etc setup PLEX on your server -- I suspect your pixellation / other problems are due to some sort of transcoding taking place. With PLEX MKV / MP4 /AVI movies don't get transcoded - some H265 stuff might but if you set subtitles to automatic and enable direct play transcoding in PLEX can be avoided. You need to give the buffer size a large value too. PLEX can handle loads of users too --it's designed as a multi-media server. !!!

Although NAS is a great solution, my usage is low with a single user & hence there is absolutely no need for a dedicated NAS box and hence thinking of using PC to stream only.

I do have multiple Plex questions, as I just tried it today:

1] What is the difference and benefits between sharing a folder via windows 10 inbuilt sharing function vs Plex.
2] What kind of security is there in plex so that my neighbor’s cant access my files ?
3] How to stop Plex from transcoding my files before streaming.. couldn’t find anything to stop from settings.
4] In order to stream video files to my laptop I keep getting “the selected server cannot be reached securely”.
Indirect/insure connection would be possible – I checked out and theres a huge troubleshooting things which I will check once I get enough time and with new router. – Any easy solutions lemme know

NavyLCDR said:

Sign in User Account Automatically at Windows 10 Startup - Windows 10 Forums

You the man ! Looking for this forever

Also, one more thing I want to clear my doubts with:

While sharing folders (from Desktop) via windows sharing function and accessing on Laptop –
I also see laptop under “Network” and when I click on it there’s users folder and under all things on my
laptop. Now I haven’t shared any laptop folder, wonder why is it showing the same? Is it by default ?

NavyLCDR · 02 Nov 2016

Craige said:

Also, one more thing I want to clear my doubts with:

While sharing folders (from Desktop) via windows sharing function and accessing on Laptop –
I also see laptop under “Network” and when I click on it there’s users folder and under all things on my
laptop. Now I haven’t shared any laptop folder, wonder why is it showing the same? Is it by default ?

Right click on the network icon on the left side of your task bar. Select Open Network and Sharing Center. On the left of Network and Sharing Center, click Change Advanced Sharing Settings. Under All Networks, Public Folder Sharing, click the option to turn off public folder sharing: