Gadgetory

like many of you I have a bunch of photos from a recent trip I took and I want to be able to share them on all of my computers and devices at home without actually uploading the photos on to every single one the solution is to use a networked hard drive once it's set up I'll be able to view photos videos and any other files stored on the drive from any device that's connected to my Wi-Fi network there are a few ways to go about this one is by using a network attached storage drive or an ass drive for the power user they're great but if you're more of a casual user who only wants to share media there's a better and more affordable solution on the back of most current routers you've got all of your standard networking ports plus a USB port when a hard drive is plugged in here you can share whatever is on it with any other device connected to your network here's how to set it up on Windows first choose your storage drive it can be as small as a thumb drive or you can attach a bigger external hard drive plug it in and head to your computer launch your browser and go to your router's IP address in my case it's 192.168 point 10.1 but you can find yours in the device manual unless you change to yourself every routers interface will vary but if it has a USB port you'll likely find a file sharing option under the administrator settings here be sure to enable the file sharing server apply the settings and get out of there now you're ready to access the drive so head back to your desktop launch an explorer window and go to the network folder at the top clear out the path and enter backslash backslash followed by your IP address with that your drive will appear you can double-click it to access it like any other folder you'll be asked to enter your login which is the same one you use to access your router once i'm in i can see all of my vacation photos and so can anyone else on the network the process is the same for all other windows computers as well as my android tablet at this point you might want to map your drive so that it always appears in the sidebar for easy access to do that just right-click the drive and select map network drive and there are all my photos from my trip whenever and wherever I want and the best part is that if I ever need to take my drive with me somewhere it's as easy as unplugging it and stashing it in my bag