Four Good Uses for a Shared Folder


After you know which shared network folders are available, you may wonder what you're supposed to do with them. This section describes four good uses for a network folder.

Store files that everybody needs

A shared network folder is a good place to store files that more than one user needs to access. Without a network, you have to store a copy of the file on everyone's computer, and you have to worry about keeping the copies synchronized (which you can't do, no matter how hard you try). Or, you can keep the file on a disk and pass it around. Or, you can keep the file on one computer and play musical chairs-whenever someone needs to use the file, he goes to the computer that contains the file.

On a network, you can keep one copy of the file in a shared folder on the network, and everyone can access it.

Store your own files

You can also use a shared network folder as an extension of your own hard drive storage. For example, if you filled up all the free space on your hard drive with pictures, sounds, and movies that you downloaded from the Internet, but the network server has billions and billions of gigabytes of free space, you have all the drive space you need. Just store your files on the network drive!

Here are a few guidelines for storing files on network drives:

  • Using the network drive for your own files works best if the network drive is set up for private storage that other users can't access. That way, you don't have to worry about the nosy guy down in Accounting who likes to poke around in other people's files.

  • Don't overuse the network drive. Remember that other users have probably filled up their own hard drives, so they want to use the space on the network drive, too.

  • Before you store personal files on a network drive, make sure that you have permission. A note from your mom will do.

  • On domain networks, a drive (typically drive H) is commonly mapped to a user's home folder. The home folder is a network folder that's unique for each user. You can think of it as a network version of My Documents. If your network is set up with a home folder, you should use it rather than My Documents for any important work-related files. That's because the home folder is usually included in the network's daily backup schedule. In contrast, most networks do not back up data you store in My Documents.

Make a pit stop for files on their way to other users

"Hey, Wally, could you send me a copy of last month's baseball stats?"

"Sure, Beav." But how? If the baseball stats file resides on Wally's local drive, how does Wally send a copy of the file to Beaver's computer? Wally can do it by copying the file to a network folder. Then Beaver can copy the file to his local hard drive.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when you use a network drive to exchange files with other network users:

  • Remember to delete files that you saved to the network folder after they're picked up! Otherwise, the network folder quickly fills up with unnecessary files.

  • Create a folder on the network drive specifically intended for holding files en route to other users. Name this folder PITSTOP or something similar to suggest its function.

Tip 

In many cases, it's easier to send files to other network users by e-mail than by using a network folder. Just send a message to the other network user and attach the file you want to share. The advantage of sending a file by e-mail is that you don't have to worry about details like where to leave the file on the server and who's responsible for deleting the file.

Back up your local hard drive

If enough drive space is available on the file server, you can use it to store backup copies of the files on your hard drive. Just copy the files that you want to back up to a shared network folder.

Obviously, if you copy all your data files to the network drive-and everybody else follows suit-it can quickly fill up. Check with the network manager before you start storing backup copies of your files on the server. The manager may have already set up a special network drive that's designed just for backups. And, if you're lucky, your network manager may be able to set up an automatic backup schedule for your important data so that you don't have to remember to back it up manually.

I hope that your network administrator also routinely backs up the contents of the network server's disk to tape. (Yes, tape-see Chapter 21 for details.) That way, if something happens to the network server, the data can be recovered from the backup tapes.




Networking For Dummies
Networking For Dummies
ISBN: 0470534052
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 254
Authors: Doug Lowe

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net