Neufbox, HDD and backing up... Advice please

[Clair]

I have bought a HDD with the main purpose of backing-up the laptops.

Am I right in thinking I can do so by connecting the HDD to the Neufbox (NB4)?

If I manage to do that, does it mean that my files/music/photos will be accessible to any occasional visitor who has been granted wifi access?

If that is the case, is there a way to bar or password access to those files?

[Danny]

Clair

some reading here

http://assistance.sfr.fr/internet_neufbox-de-SFR/connexion/brancher-un-disque-dur-ou-cle-usb-neufbox/fc-463-70371

I am not sure if you need to access by password or not but why don't you try it with some ramdom files on with just your computers connected and see how it works.

Sorry, I can't find any other useful info.

Check the settings page for the périphériques de stockage to see if there are any choices about who to share with.

It may be that you  need to unplug the hard drive from the neufbox when you have anyone else connected.

Danny

[AnOther]

Connected to your router I think it's very likely that others would be able to see it as a shared drive on the network but as Danny says, have a play.

For me a better idea would be a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device which you can properly password protect.

Also don't forget that the speed of your backups will be limited to that of

your network, that's in theory - in practice it will be considerably less,

maybe as little as 30% or so, particularly if done over a WiFi connection instead of ethernet. This

may not be a concern of course but I though I'd remind you before you

dedicated time and effort into something which ultimately disappointed.

[AnOther]

One other point:

There are ways to encrypt a drive however encryption will severely, if not fatally, compromise your chances of recovery if the drive ever fails so is not something I would recommend.

[Quillan]

Not to mention you can share Video and all sorts to a TV (via a media extender) with a NAS.

You could, if you have a spare PC buy Microsoft Homer Server 10 for around £60 which will automatically back up PC's and act as a Media Server. You can even give family and friends secure rights to access it, or portions of it remotely, like sharing photo's or video you have taken. Do a bit of research if I were you to see whats around and what suits you best.

[Clair]

Thanks for the comments, much appreciated.

Danny, I followed the SFR instructions when I connected the disk to the Neufbox. The HDD shows as a "Périphérique de stockage". Actually, because I partitioned the HDD, both new drives are listed.

I activated the "Service UPnP-AV" option and the drives are listed as shared files ("dossiers partagés").

However, when I tried a backup routine, using the usual Windows Vista backup, I couldn't bring the disk in the network map. It's just not showing as a backup option on the network map.

So I backed up the laptops last night by connecting the HDD directly to them.

Next I connected the HDD to the Neufbox and both drives show up as "dossiers partagés", with an option to remove them from the list.  So in principle, I can remove each partition or even the HDD itself from the list when we have guests, without actually disconnecting it from the box.

All seems fine and dandy, until I try to backup and find out that the HDD (connected to the Neufbox) does not show as a backup option on the network map.

So it seems that my idea of automated backups onto the HDD via the network is not viable. That in itself cancels all my other questions regarding file-sharing with guests.

Thank you both for your suggestions. It looks as if the traditional method is my best option... [:)]