Setting Up A NAS

[lukemcfc]

Hey guys,

 

Is it possible to run a NAS system on a typical home PC, with Windows 10? But still use the computer as a normal PC.

 

Thanks for all of the help!

[Windows7ge]

There's a couple of ways you could go about doing that. They're not ideal but yes you can do that if you want.

[lukemcfc]

Just now, Windows7ge said:

There's a couple of ways you could go about doing that. They're not ideal but yes you can do that if you want.

Ok, how would I be able to do that?

 

Thanks for your help!

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, lukemcfc said:

Ok, how would I be able to do that?

 

Thanks for your help!

The most basic level would be to setup a homegroup. This would share your boot drive. Next step up would be to share a dedicated drive or two with the local network. A step up from that would be to configure a software or hardware RAID for redundancy and share the array with the network.

 

In any of these situations the network storage will only be available to users when the computer is on. One reason it isn't ideal.

[lukemcfc]

Just now, Windows7ge said:

The most basic level would be to setup a homegroup. This would share your boot drive. Next step up would be to share a dedicated drive or two with the local network. A step up from that would be to configure a software or hardware RAID for redundancy and share the array with the network.

 

In any of these situations the network storage will only be available to users when the computer is on. One reason it isn't ideal.

What I would like is to make a 200GB or so partition and share that across my whole network, also I have a powerline going into my PC so that could cause problems.

[Windows7ge]

That wouldn't be hard. Just resize your primary partition in disk management. Create a new one. It should show up as a D: or E: drive. Then share it with the network. Things get a little complicated when you have to fiddle with the share permissions and yes power line will definitely give you non-ideal speeds so don't expect to be copying 10's of GB in a hurry.

[lukemcfc]

Just now, Windows7ge said:

That wouldn't be hard. Just resize your primary partition in disk management. Create a new one. It should show up as a D: or E: drive. Then share it with the network. Things get a little complicated when you have to fiddle with the share permissions and yes power line will definitely give you non-ideal speeds so don't expect to be copying 10's of GB in a hurry.

How could I share that partition with my network?

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, lukemcfc said:

How could I share that partition with my network?

I'm doing this off memory so I might be wrong but if you right click on the drive and go to properties you should see a tab that says "share" to the top right. Going to that and going through the setup should let you share the drive with the network. However when you go to access it from another computer it will likely ask you to input login credentials. It's asking for the computers username & password for the account that created it. Bypassing this is tedious (at least from memory on Windows 7) but it is doable. It has to do with editing security settings for the share.

[lukemcfc]

6 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

I'm doing this off memory so I might be wrong but if you right click on the drive and go to properties you should see a tab that says "share" to the top right. Going to that and going through the setup should let you share the drive with the network. However when you go to access it from another computer it will likely ask you to input login credentials. It's asking for the computers username & password for the account that created it. Bypassing this is tedious (at least from memory on Windows 7) but it is doable. It has to do with editing security settings for the share.

Okay thanks so much for your help! I have dual-booted Windows 7 and 10, which one would be easier to manage?

[AshleyAshes]

Why not just make a single specific folder on your system and share that folder to all other machines?   Like, if ALL you want is to share 'about 200GB', which is pretty small, you could just do that without any special effort.

[Windows7ge]

5 minutes ago, lukemcfc said:

Okay thanks so much for your help! I have dual-booted Windows 7 and 10, which one would be easier to manage?

I know getting it working on Windows 7 was a pain but again it was do-able. I'd try doing it on Windows 10. If it doesn't work right away let me or the rest of the forum know and we'll troubleshoot from there.

 

Edit: AshleyAshes has a point. I forgot that was an option too.

[lukemcfc]

1 minute ago, AshleyAshes said:

Why not just make a single specific folder on your system and share that folder to all other machines?   Like, if ALL you want is to share 'about 200GB', which is pretty small, you could just do that without any special effort.

I have plans in the future to upgrade and put in more HDD's

[lukemcfc]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

I know getting it working on Windows 7 was a pain but again it was do-able. I'd try doing it on Windows 10. If it doesn't work right away let me or the rest of the forum know and we'll troubleshoot from there.

Okay thanks man, what a help you have been! Help is greatly appreciated.

[lukemcfc]

@Windows7ge

When I try to format my drives, I have 2 unallocated partitions, how can I merge them into 1?

[Windows7ge]

8 minutes ago, lukemcfc said:

I have plans in the future to upgrade and put in more HDD's

If you add more drives you'll want to consider some form of RAID(1/5/6) so if you lose a disk you don't lose a large chunk of your data. Though a caveat of that is if the RAID itself crashes you lose everything but that's not a frequent issue. I know @Electronics Wizardy mentioned two pieces of software that let you use a series of disks (kind of a JBOD array but not exactly) to software RAID a series of disks together with a little bit of redundancy but I forgot the names of the software. Might be worth writing down for future reference.

 

10 minutes ago, lukemcfc said:

@Windows7ge

When I try to format my drives, I have 2 unallocated partitions, how can I merge them into 1?

To my knowledge there can only be one unallocated space. Your drive must have multiple partitions on it. If the partitions are small (under 1GB) ignore them Windows 10 makes them when the OS in installed. If they're substantial in size they might be alternate windows installations. Can we get a picture so we know exactly what you're looking at? We don't want do delete anything important (I have in the past, it sucks.)

[lukemcfc]

3 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

If you add more drives you'll want to consider some form of RAID(1/5/6) so if you lose a disk you don't lose a large chunk of your data. Though a caveat of that is if the RAID itself crashes you lose everything but that's not a frequent issue. I know @Electronics Wizardy mentioned two pieces of software that let you use a series of disks (kind of a JBOD array but not exactly) to software RAID a series of disks together with a little bit of redundancy but I forgot the names of the software. Might be worth writing down for future reference.

 

To my knowledge there can only be one unallocated space. Your drive must have multiple partitions on it. If the partitions are small (under 1GB) ignore them Windows 10 makes them when the OS in installed. If they're substantial in size they might be alternate windows installations. Can we get a picture so we know exactly what you're looking at? We don't want do delete anything important (I have in the past, it sucks.)

I'll supply you with a picture soon! Once my PC boots up!

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

f you add more drives you'll want to consider some form of RAID(1/5/6) so if you lose a disk you don't lose a large chunk of your data. Though a caveat of that is if the RAID itself crashes you lose everything but that's not a frequent issue. I know @Electronics Wizardy mentioned two pieces of software that let you use a series of disks (kind of a JBOD array but not exactly) to software RAID a series of disks together with a little bit of redundancy but I forgot the names of the software. Might be worth writing down for future reference.

Snapraid and drive pool.

 

 

[Windows7ge]

2 minutes ago, lukemcfc said:

I'll supply you with a picture soon! Once my PC boots up!

Alright.

 

@Electronics Wizardy Thank you.

[lukemcfc]

@Windows7ge

I zoomed it in for you!

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, lukemcfc said:

@Windows7ge

I zoomed it in for you!

Yea thats gonna be a pain. You need to move the Z: drive over, can't easily do that, and there is a chance of data loss too.

 

 

[Windows7ge]

@lukemcfc Huh, I wonder if those are physical locations on the disk and the two unallocated spaces are not physically touching each other.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

@lukemcfc Huh, I wonder if those are physical locations on the disk and the two unallocated spaces are not physically touching each other.

Yep thats how it works. You can make parttions there(but 4 partitions max here), but moving is a pain.

[lukemcfc]

2 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

@lukemcfc Huh, I wonder if those are physical locations on the disk and the two unallocated spaces are not physically touching each other.

They are both under Disk 0.

[lukemcfc]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yep thats how it works. You can make parttions there(but 4 partitions max here), but moving is a pain.

So what could I do?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, lukemcfc said:

So what could I do?

Do you need a dual boot?

 

Id personally just add a second hdd for files, but a i have a bin of hdds for this.

 

You can move the data with some programs, but its a pain.