File Sharing Tutorials

The following sections cover using the NSA for file sharing. This chapter assumes you have already followed the Quick Start Guide instructions to perform initial setup and configuration (so you have a working volume). See the rest of this User’s Guide for details on configuring the NSA’s various screens.

4.9.1 Creating a User Account

Bob wants to create accounts for his sons Jimmy and Kevin. This is how he would do it.

1 At the NSA web configurator login screen enter the administrator account and password and click Administrator Login to go to the advanced administration screens.

2 Click Sharing > Users to open the Users screen. Then click Add User.

3 Configure the screen as follows and write down the username and password to give to Jimmy. If the username and password are the same as Jimmy’s Windows login, Jimmy will not need to enter a username and password when he logs into his share from his computer. Set the Account Type to User so Jimmy doesn’t get to configure the whole NSA. Click Apply to create the account.

4 The account now displays in the Users screen.

Now that Bob has created Jimmy’s account, he can go through the steps again to create another account for Kevin. After both accounts are created, he can go to Section 4.9.2 on page 83 to create shares for Jimmy and Kevin.

4.9.2 Creating a Share

Suppose Bob has already created separate accounts for his sons Jimmy and Kevin. Now Bob wants to create a share for each son. He also wants to make sure that each son can only access his own share (to keep them from deleting each other’s files). This is how he would do it.

1 In the NSA’s administration web configurator screens, click Shares > Add Share. Click Add Share to create a new share.

2 Specify a name for the share and select which volume it should be on. Configure the screen as follows. Then click Edit.

3 Configure the screen as follows to give Jimmy full access right to the share. Then click Apply to create the share.

Now that Bob has created Jimmy’s share, he can go through the steps again to create another share for Kevin.

4.9.3 Creating a Group

After creating user accounts for Jimmy and Kevin, Bob wants to create a group for his sons and another one for the parents. Bob can assign access rights to his sons’ group for certain shares such as a cartoons share and allow only the parents’ group to access the scary movie share. This is how he would create the group.

1 In the NSA’s administration web configurator screen, click Groups > Add Group.

2 Specify a name for the group. Select the user(s) you want to add to the group from the Available User(s) list and click Add Selected User(s). Configure the screen as follows. Then click Apply to create the group.

Now that Bob has created a group for Jimmy and Kevin, he can go through the steps again to create another group for the parents. Then he can see the rest of the tutorials for how to use the groups in assigning access rights to shares.

4.9.4 Accessing a Share From Windows Explorer

If you map a NSA share (where data is stored) to a Windows network drive, you can use Windows Explorer to transfer files to and from the NSA as if it was another folder on your computer. Here he maps Jimmy’s share to Jimmy’s computer.

1 Start Windows Explorer and go to the NSA’s server name. The default is ‘nsa’ followed by the number of your model (‘nsa320’ for example).

2 Click Tools > Map Network Drive.

3 Select the network drive that you want to map the NSA to from the Drive list box. This example uses I. Then browse to and select the share on the NSA. Click Finish.

4 Enter the username and password for Jimmy’s account and click OK. You do not need to do this if the username and password are the same as Jimmy’s Windows login.

5 After the mapping is done, you can then simply copy and paste or drag and drop files from/to your local computer’s drives to or from this network folder. Just like the NSA’s share was another folder on your computer.

Now that Bob has mapped Jimmy’s share to Jimmy’s computer, he can go through the steps again to map Kevin’s share to Kevin’s computer.

4.9.5 Accessing a Share Using FTP

You can also use FTP to access the NSA. Suppose Jimmy is temporarily using a different computer and wants to access his share without mapping it to the computer. This is how he would do it.

1 Open the FTP client (Windows Explorer is used here) and type “ftp://username@server” where

“username” is the account’s username and “server” is the NSA’s IP address or server name.

2 Enter your password and click Login.

3 Now you can access files and copy files from/to your local computer’s drives to or from this network folder.

4.9.6 Accessing a Share Through the Web Configurator

You can browse and access files through the web configurator.

1 Log into the NSA web configurator (see Section 3.3 on page 43) using the appropriate user name and password (this example uses Jimmy’s) and click File Browser. Click a share (the Jimmy share in this example) to see the top level of the share’s contents.

2 Click a folder’s file name to browse the folder. You can open files or copy them to your computer.

You can also create new folders and upload additional files to the share.

3 Click the logout icon when your are done.