How to Add a Hard Drive to a Network

PCs & Laptops For Dummies

Putting a hard drive up for grabs on the network is done primarily by sharing folders on your computer with other computers on the network. But it’s possible to connect a hard drive directly to the network — a hard drive that doesn’t have a computer attached. It can happen in one of two ways.

First, you can connect an external USB hard drive to a router that features USB ports. Plug the hard drive into the wall and then connect it to the router. The hard drive may be instantly recognized, or it might require additional configuration.

The second method to connect a hard drive is directly. This method works only when the hard drive features its own Ethernet port: Simply plug the hard drive into its power supply, plug the hard drive into the router with an Ethernet cable, and you’re done. The hard drive appears in the Network window along with other drives shared on the network.

Viewing and accessing network hard drives can be done in Windows.
In Windows XP, networked hard drives appear in the My Network Places window.
Not all external hard drives feature an Ethernet port. Expect to pay more for a stand-alone network hard drive.

About This Article

About the book author:

Dan Gookin has been writing about technology for 20 years. He has contributed articles to numerous high-tech magazines and written more than 90 books about personal computing technology, many of them accurate.
He combines his love of writing with his interest in technology to create books that are informative and entertaining, but not boring. Having sold more than 14 million titles translated into more than 30 languages, Dan can attest that his method of crafting computer tomes does seem to work.
Perhaps Dan’s most famous title is the original DOS For Dummies, published in 1991. It became the world’s fastest-selling computer book, at one time moving more copies per week than the New York Times number-one best seller (although, because it’s a reference book, it could not be listed on the NYT best seller list). That book spawned the entire line of For Dummies books, which remains a publishing phenomenon to this day.
Dan’s most recent titles include PCs For Dummies, 9th Edition; Buying a Computer For Dummies, 2005 Edition; Troubleshooting Your PC For Dummies; Dan Gookin’s Naked Windows XP; and Dan Gookin’s Naked Office. He publishes a free weekly computer newsletter, “Weekly Wambooli Salad,” and also maintains the vast and helpful Web site www.wambooli.com.