I must first admit that nearly anything to do with networks is usually lost on me, but I can learn!
My home network uses a Netgear Nighthawk router, newer model. I plugged a 14TB Seagate external drive into the router’s USB 3.0 but it’s only recognizing 190M. The drive is exFat.
I’m thinking either the format or the size is not working with the router, so then I wondered, can I just plug this into one of the computers running on EndeavourOS and have the same functionality across the network?
In a great scenario I’d be able to access this drive from any device on the network, even the tv. Bad thing is my skills do not match my imagination in a case like this, but is it possible and what would the steps be if so?
Answer is yes, probably want to use Samba to do this (if you seemingly have Windows in the mix?),
Myself I’d reformat for a linux filesystem first…but that’s up to you.
I hope you realize that this computer needs to be running all the time if you want to use it like a server?
And as @dbarronoss says, if there is a windows system that needs access, you may want to use samba.
Not sure what your tv would need, though.
If you want to reach the server from outside your local network you may want to read up on setting up a vpn.
Here is an article about setting up an nfs server on arch, to give you some idea about the basics:
I have used this kind of tutorials to set up my home network. I have a RPI3 as a server, with some external storage attached to it, and running Nextcloud, VPN, and adguard. But first thing i did was get the RPI3 running as a fileserver. And that was my starting point to learn about vpn and Nextcloud.
Thanks @dbarronoss and @SemLraug I had a feeling this could be possible! No Windows units involved in my home, all running EndeavourOS except my work-provided Macbook, but that doesn’t play a role here. I’ll take a closer look at this NFS guide, looks very promising, very much appreciate the information!
This is a big long term vision for me. I pay for Nextcloud hosting but would much rather set up my own. I’ve started the process a few times but each attempt failed, usually around the areas of trying to sort out ports and access to a home server from outside. Networking is not my friend, but I know I’ll try again some day because I pretty much don’t give up on things when I desire to learn them!
(Not an endorsement - just an example of a dynamic dns; there are several out there.)
My advice though is to first get your internal network up and running, and get it safe and hardened, and get some understanding about the risks and safety measures, before you expose your network to the rest of the world.
I have a Nextcloud running that, according to the logs, is routinely probed for weaknesses hundreds of times every week.
You may or may not need a static IP address.
You do not need one if you intend it to only be used in your home network.
You also do no need it if you are willing to simply expose a port on your external firewall and do something like dynamic DNS.
This is solid advice. Opening ports and exposing things like my Nextcloud to vulnerabilities that I do not understand is exactly what’s keeping me from hosting my own NC.
Today I finally get a chance to work on setting up the internal network and that 14TB drive!
