Right now, our top pick for best external hard drive is the Western Digital My Passport 4TB, which is a mechanical hard drive. We think it offers creatives the perfect balance of speed, reliability, portability and price for both Mac and PC users. The best external hard drives: What to consider. Network drive is probably the best alternative for work or home environments where more than one computer is used to share files between them. However, macOS can't automatically detect network devices, unlike installed hardware. So you need to manually install and set them up, afterwards you will need to map a network drive on your Mac.
The most common way to share data with Windows and Mac includes Slack, Google Drive and good old' flash drives. However, there is a better way if both computers are connected to the same WiFi network. In this article, we'll set up shared folders on Mac and access it from a Windows computer. Let's begin.
If you want to share the folders on Windows and access it from a Mac instead then you can follow the steps in this article on how to access Windows Shared folders on a Mac.
Step 1. Enable File Sharing and Share a Folder on Mac
Setting up and Accessing Shared folders is relatively easy and you don't need to install any additional hardware. However, it would be even more seamless if you assign these devices a static IP so that you don't have to re-establish a connection whenever your router assigns a new one.
Open ‘System Preferences‘ on your Mac computer and click the Sharing icon.
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Click File Sharing and add all the folders you want to share by clicking the + button under Shared Folders as shown below.
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After this, you can add users and the level of control they'd have on the shared folders. If you're unsure then leave it on the default and enable the Server. Click Options to open the dialog box.
Mac supports both SMB and AFP servers where the latter is built for Apple devices only. I plan on sharing the folder between both Mac and Windows so I checked both servers but you can enable just SMB and it would work just as fine.
Check the box next to 'Share files and folders using SMB'. Check the box next to your account and click Done.
Now, click the ‘File Sharing' box on the left pane and then lock the settings by clicking on the padlock icon in the bottom left side of the window.
Before you exit this window, note down the smb server address and the name of the shared folder, we'll need this to access the shared folder on Mac.
Read: How to Setup Shared Folders, Users, Permissions on WD NAS
Step 2. Access Shared folder On Windows
To access the shared folder on a Windows computer, we'll map the drive to the computer. Open Windows Explorer and right-click on This PC icon.
Select ‘Map Network Drive'. Even though you can access the shared folder by running this command 'IP-ADDRESS-OF-MAC' in the Run dialog box, we'll map it so that it shows up in Windows Explorer and you don't have to run the command every time you want to access the network drive.
Now, you'd need the IP address we note down earlier while enabling the shared folder on Mac. Type ' YOUR-MAC-IPSHARED-FOLDER'. Click finish.
It would prompt you to enter the credentials and map the drive after successful authentication. Now, you can access the shared folder and files in it.
Final Words
That was a quick way to set up sharing and accessing Mac shared folders from a Windows computer. It is a convenient and reliable way of accessing large files over the network when you don't move around a lot. We use it for sharing Rendered video files that reduce the dependency on Google Drive and flash drives. Use amazon alexa as mac speaker. Go ahead map the drives and let me know if you face any problems. You can comment down below or reach me on Twitter.
How to temporary or permanently map a network drive on a Mac?
Network drive is probably the best alternative for work or home environments where more than one computer is used to share files between them. However, macOS can't automatically detect network devices, unlike installed hardware. So you need to manually install and set them up, afterwards you will need to map a network drive on your Mac. Mapping a network is a process, where you reveal the path to a storage device attached to a network.
There are two methods how to map your network drive on Mac. First would be for temporary use, where you loose your path to network drive after restart. The second would be a permanent one, where your Mac will detect and mount the network drive every time it connect to the same network with attached storage. Speaking about business, network storage usually comes in the form of server storage, SANs (storage area network), NAS (network attached storage) and cloud services. However, home users also can use the same technologies, but SANs requires higher budget, so NAS or cloud storage would be more efficient.
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What is a network drive?
In case you're not an experienced computer user, you probably wonder what actually is a network drive, although what SAN and NAS is and what is their differences and possibilities?
Partitioning a hard drive for mac and windows. A network drive is basically any type of storage connected to your router. In most frequent cases these are made up of computers, who's acting like servers to provide storage. A NAS device might be either an external hard drive (even usb flash key) connected to your home router, either assigned NAS device builded with own hardware and multiple drives. However, storage connects to you router and permits to authorized users to reach it. A SAN is basically a more complicated NAS, that can have numerous drives available in same network. These are frequently used in enterprise.
How to temporary map a network drive
Using this method your network drive will be connected and mounted for one time use, which means that it will disappear if you disconnect from network or simply reboot your Mac.
First open Mac 0010OS Finder app, that press Command and K buttons to launch Connect to Server window. Enter the route to the network drive you desire to map, for example: smb://networkcomputer/networkshare and click Connect.
Enter your log in details and click OK to mount the network drive. From now till reboot your network drive will be shown on your desktop and in the Finder's window sidebar. You can access the network share like a usual folder at this point.
Map a network drive to Mac OS which automatically re-mounts after reconnection
Using this method will leave you an openings to reboot your Mac and keep the network drive mapped as well as network reconnections. Your Mac will automatically remounts the drive, so you will be able to find your desktop shortcut whenever you connect to network.
First open Mac 0010OS Finder app, that press Command and K buttons to launch Connect to Server window. Enter the route to the network drive you desire to map, for example: smb://networkcomputer/networkshare and click Connect.
Enter your log in details and click OK to mount the network drive. Once your drive is mounted, you need to enable automatic mounts, so open System Preferences from the Apple menu. Click on Users and Groups (or Accounts in older OS) and choose Login Items. Click on add (+) button to add another login item, locate the network drive you have mounted before and click Add. From now on your network drive will be mapped and automatically remounted every time you reboot your Mac.
However, if you disconnect or loose connection to network where the mapped network drive is located, it won't reconnect automatically until you reconnect to the network and reboot your computer. What is more, shared drive will be accessible through Finder as usual folder.
Make network drive accessible from Mac desktop
Good news that you may access your network drive through your Mac's desktop icon. Just follow several steps and create an icon which always appear on desktop when you connect to network.
First open Finder preferences from a menu bar in very top of you window, this appears when Finder is launched. Click the General tab and select the checkbox next to Connected Servers. This step ensure you to see the drives icon on your desktop, uncheck it and it will be only accessible in Finder window sidebars.
Mount a mapped network drive with a one click
Home Network Mac
There is a very useful additional step which allows you to create an alias of the mapped network drive, so you will be able to reconnect to the share with just one click. To create an alias, just right-click your mapped network drive icon on the desktop and select Make Alias. Once you've created alias just double-click it and your Mac reconnect to the network drive instantly. This is really useful, if you reconnecting to a network repeatedly.
Map Network Drive On Mac
Video Showing how to map a network drive on Mac:
