How can I setup hdd for remote access?

[shevanel]

I recently bought a Belkin home base to use as a print server and to remotely access my HDD's so I did not have to connect them to my laptop as I watched movies in the living room using the TV. While the Belkin has served it's purpose for printing and remote access it does not provide me with a good amount of speed when transferring files.. usually 5mb/s

The other thing I don't like about the belkin is I cannot get it to work with any type of wireless security.. so whenever I use it I have to go open.

I was wondering what my options were as far as setting up something in my closet to use as a server for me to access my files via wireless.

I do have an old P4 rig, would this be something I should try? Set it up and just use that or is there something you could suggest that has built in wireless and allows me to just install hdd's or something?

I never really got into remote access type of stuff so please help me chose the best way to access movies from a hdd wirelessly and cost's under $150

Thanks

 

[sneekypeet]

I would get a better router and use media sharing or file sharing built into windows.

 

[hat]

If you're trying to transfer files wirelessly, you're going to get shit speeds, epsically if it's wireless G. If you're going wired... it would be in your best interests to get a gigabit switch and set it up so you just have the router connected to the switch, then all the computers on the network connected to the switch. That way, all intranet activites are handled by the much faster switch, and the only thing the router does is direct net traffic. If you are going wireless, you might want to just turn the wireless off in your router, and get a seperate wireless N switch and use it like you would be using the switch in the meathod I already described. If you're doing wired and wireless transfers, get the switch and do what I said before, and hook the access point up to the switch.

As a rule of thumb, wireless blows for anything heavy duty. Don't expect reliable fast access times (gaming), or consistently fast speeds (file transfers) over a wireless connection. Wireless N may be different, but my file transfers with wireless G were painful. I never got 27Mbps sustained (the 54Mbps is 27 up and 27 down, not 54 both ways like 100Mbps fast wired ethernet is 100 both ways), and that is a small network in a tight space, with next to zero probability of someone getting into my network and messing shit up.

As for actually setting up hard drives to be shared, just stick them in any old machine running XP or later, and just share the whole entire hard drive by going into the properties of the drive and setting up sharing. On XP it's pretty simple, just set it up to be shared then go map the network drive on whatever computer. On Vista/7, you have to go to the Security tab > Edit > Add > make a profile for "Everyone" so other computers can get in to it over the network.

 

[shevanel]

I have a linksys N router and it does good speeds... it was just the belkin home base thing that did shit speeds.. it isn't meant for transferring.. mostly just accessing.

I guess I will wait until a new tek comes out that allows remote access to hdds

 

[MadCatMk2]

shevanel, I'm not able to search right now so I have to ask; by what mean is the HDD connected to this home base?

 

[shevanel]

The belkin homebase is a 4 port wireless device that allows you to connect 4 usb devices.. I have a printer and one hdd connected to it.. so to answer your question it is connected via usb.

 

[MadCatMk2]

With USB 2.0 you'd "normally" be getting around 25MB/s instead of 5. Do you have a second computer to test PC to PC file transfer speeds to make sure that the problem does not lie in the wireless network itself?