Turn Raspberry Pi + external HDD into NAS
Transform your Raspberry Pi and external HDD into a powerful NAS (Network Attached Storage) for seamless file sharing across devices. This guide covers Samba installation, configuration, and setting up network drives for easy access on Windows and other systems. Personal local cloud drive!
This guide will help you setting up a network drive so that you can access your external HDD from all of your devices over WiFi. NAS is short for "Network Attached Storage" - let's attach your HDD to your home network!
OBS: If you came here after installing PMS, you can skip the apt-get update && apt-get upgrade. But if you are just here for the NAS setup we will need to be up to date.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
Next install samba
sudo apt-get install samba samba-common-bin
Now let's configure samba to expose your external HDD as a network drive
sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf
In the nano editor add the following:
[nasberrypi]
path = /disks/plexmedia
writeable=Yes
create mask=0777
directory mask=0777
public=no
Leave everything else as is, save and exit. I like to call my network drive "nasberrypi" but feel free to use another name. If the directory/hdd that you want to expose is not in "/disks/plexmedia" please change the path to your desired location.
You need to set a password for samba by using the command:
sudo smbpasswd -a pi
It will ask you for a password and a confirmational retype.
Add network drive to your windows machine
Let's add your network drive to This PC as if it was just another physical HDD in your computer.
This PC -> Map network drive -> Map network drive
In the setup wizard choose a Drive letter, for example "X:"
In the Folder input you need to write "\\<server name>\<samba name>" following my example it should be: \\raspberrypi\nasberrypi
Tick both check boxes and hit Finish.
Windows will ask for a password, enter the one you chose just a minute earlier and click OK.
Rasmus Puls