Network Drive / External Drive..

[LivinLOS]

I used to have a RIAD 5 store on my home net for media files but switched that over to simply a 400GB external and cut the video files out so its just for audio..

I purchased a 'network drive' external closure with ethernet port.. However this has been a real disappointment as it requires an NDIS driver installed on each client PC thats going to access the drive.. Not a workable solution and not possible to use it with the XBOX360.. So I am now using the drive via a USB onto one machine on the network and sharing it, that throws another annoyance in that being an external drive every reboot the entire drive scans.. Being a 400GB drive that takes time and is not desirable on my HTPC (media box) where fast boots and a non PC interface are desirable...

I really want to sort the home network out better and whip my audio collection into better shape, sort the tagging out, make sure cover art is tidy and share that around the home nodes better etc etc etc.

So questions based on the info above.

Are there true network drive housings that make the files appear as a simple networked machine filesharing ?? No client drivers and work with XBOX360 ??

Or is there a way I can stop a XP machine 'discovering' a USB drive each time ?? Can I make it act simply like an internal drive instead of a removable drive ??

[Tywais]

Right click on the drive, select Properties then under the menu AutoPlay then click on 'Select Action to Perform' then choose the media type, Music, video, pictures, mixed contents and choose 'Take no Action'.

[LivinLOS]

Thats to open or play or whatever.. Thats already done..

But the drive 'scans' on reboot, normally that happens in a flash.. But 400 GB of tunes takes a few seconds or longer.. It just looks fugly on a media PC with a ncie non computer interface (the boot screen is not a winXP one either)..

[Kyosuken]

you mean it's doing a "chkdsk" ? or Check Disk... Well it means your computer crashed or the usb cable was unplugged during transert or power outage or... god didn't want it to work properly ... well what i mean is that XP detected that your disk needed to be checked (surely because the puter is never shut down properly) so that's why you see the check at every start.

I advise you yo let it run once and fully up to the end (it's long yes but it's a neede evil) then when it's done, boot up XP normally and then restart the computer (through XP not by pushing the reset button). See if the check happens again.

If for some reason, you did that before and shut your computer properly then follow this how to : http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_keep_chkdsk_fr...y_start_up.html

[solo siam]

Get a Landisk or other proper NAS, these show up as network drives but are slower than USB - I'm not sure they work with the xbox 360, but its what we use with the Sonos. Basically its the same as having a dedicated file server on te network.

[Phil Conners]

I have a tired old PC that I use as a mediacenter, stuck 5 disks in it and followed this howto from Toms hardware to set them up as a software raid. It may not be the fastest solution if I needed to do any resource intensive work on this box, but in this case all it needs to do is store and serve files on the network and play mp3/mp4/divx on the TV. With 5 320GB disks I have about 1.2 TB usable storage online at not extra cost other than the PC I already had and a bunch of cheapish drives.

[monty]

I have one of those ndis enclosures as well. Utterly useless, apart from needing software on each pc wanting to access the drive, it also puts a tremendous load on the network.

There's traffic going around in circles between all the machines running the software and the enclosure, even when absolutely nothing on the drive is accessed!

Needless to say, it's relegated to being a plain (but expensive) USN enclosure as well over here

Basically If you want the network drive, if you have an older PC lying around, just jam it with drives and use that as a NAS. It's pretty light on the PC anyway, most real NAS devices just run an embedded version of Linux, along with a webserver to give access to the settings through a webbrowser...

It can be as simple as just stickin in the drives and sharing them, or you can put the software raid solution in like Phil Conners has done (although this would need a pretty fast PC as software raid 5 tends to be CPU intensive)...

It's also a good reason to start and learn setting up permissions and quota for different users if you want to have control!

[LivinLOS]

you mean it's doing a "chkdsk" ? or Check Disk... Well it means your computer crashed or the usb cable was unplugged during transert or power outage or... god didn't want it to work properly ... well what i mean is that XP detected that your disk needed to be checked (surely because the puter is never shut down properly) so that's why you see the check at every start.

I advise you yo let it run once and fully up to the end (it's long yes but it's a neede evil) then when it's done, boot up XP normally and then restart the computer (through XP not by pushing the reset button). See if the check happens again.

If for some reason, you did that before and shut your computer properly then follow this how to : http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_keep_chkdsk_fr...y_start_up.html

No its not a checkdisk.. This is a windows drive scan for removeable drives performed after book.. It pops up a window.. Scans for 30+ seconds, looking at each of the files (lots of audio) and then vanishes.. I just dont like it on my media box..

[LivinLOS]

I have one of those ndis enclosures as well. Utterly useless, apart from needing software on each pc wanting to access the drive, it also puts a tremendous load on the network.

There's traffic going around in circles between all the machines running the software and the enclosure, even when absolutely nothing on the drive is accessed!

Needless to say, it's relegated to being a plain (but expensive) USN enclosure as well over here

Basically If you want the network drive, if you have an older PC lying around, just jam it with drives and use that as a NAS. It's pretty light on the PC anyway, most real NAS devices just run an embedded version of Linux, along with a webserver to give access to the settings through a webbrowser...

It can be as simple as just stickin in the drives and sharing them, or you can put the software raid solution in like Phil Conners has done (although this would need a pretty fast PC as software raid 5 tends to be CPU intensive)...

It's also a good reason to start and learn setting up permissions and quota for different users if you want to have control!

Thats what I used to have.. But its another box I already have a desktop, a HTPC, laptops, etc.. Having 4 machines running at once seems a waste (and a lot of heat) just to add a single drive of music..

Desktop currently has 2 drives in it.. HTPC may not have room (I have a VFD / LCD panel in a special housing.. Need to look if theres space under the DVD)..

Ideal would be real NAS drive housings, simple to add more as I grow also.. Stays current as drives get larger and larger..

[monty]

This one would suit your needs:

http://www.shop4thai.com/en/product/?pid=15197

I've seen it for sale in TukCom Pattaya for slightly less.

Only drawback is that it'll only take IDE drives, the newest drives will only come out in SATA in the near future...

Or this one:

http://www.shop4thai.com/en/product/?pid=8708

On this one you can attach two USB drives, they can be external enclosures (allowing you to use SATA drives) or even simple USB sticks!

There is quite a big open source community around this device, since it runs Linux. There are several open source firmwares around, giving you lots of things to play around with!

Find out more info on the opensource community about this device, nicknamed "The Slug"

[Phil Conners]

It can be as simple as just stickin in the drives and sharing them, or you can put the software raid solution in like Phil Conners has done (although this would need a pretty fast PC as software raid 5 tends to be CPU intensive)...

That's what I though, but no matter how much network/disk activity I throw at this old PC (AMD Athlon XP 1400+ running at 1.1GHz, 512 MB RAM) so far the highest load I have noticed is 10% of the CPU. Playing MP4/XVID's on the box increase the load to some 15-20% - but it's still hardly breaking a sweat.

[solo siam]

You can buy proper NAS's in Phuket, I may even have one sitting round somewhere.

[mouse]

Sign up for the Microsoft Home Server Beta test. I am running three computers attached to a self built system with 1TB of Hard Disk, using the Beta software and am extremely happy. Designed for anything an everything including Videa, Music, even entire Operating systems. Check it out at http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/default.aspx Definitely a plus even over RAID. Fro those not eager to test the software should be out end of 2nd or 3rd quarter this year.