hello ever helpful digital spy community!
I want a set up but dont know what i need if that makes any sense. lol
in our family we have 3 laptops and a couple of fancy radio media players.

I want all of our music, photos files etc to be in one place, a bit like my works "Z Drive"
I want to be able to play music through any of the laptops or view phots from them.

looking at 100Gb of music and a normal amount of photos etc.
Do i need a home server or media server or something else?
cheers

Just a Windows PC running a recent Media Player is all you require, although if you don't have a suitable machine it may be easier to buy a discrete Media Server.

I use my main machine (the one I'm typing on now), we can access the shared files on various laptops and on the Xbox360 downstairs. In fact I've downloaded the last episode of 'The Deep' as we mssed it, we'll watch it on the Xbox over WiFi.

great - thank very much - how do i make that computer visable to the others?
Can i put a 2nd hard drive into that and back up my data on the primary drive. is there a programme that would do that automatically
thanks

If you're prepared to spend some cash, buy a MyBook World. (That's a 2TB edition, but 1TB and 500GB versions are available as well).

It's a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device, so you plug it into your broadband router via ethernet and it's accessible to everyone on the network. You can also set up private storage areas for different users.

Give each computer you want to share the same network name say HOME.

Right click on any drive/folder you want visible and choose share. That drive (or folder) should now be viewable on any PC connected to your router (By WiFi or direct cable). You can do the same with a printer on one of the networked PC's

As long as all the computers have wireless ehternet already built in - most recent ones have, otherwise buy an ethernet dongle - then connectivity can be set up within Windows (whichever version).

You need to enable file sharing and external logins, on "target" computer.

The media player on whichever computer you're using then acceses the media file on the "target" computer, to play it.

Here's how to do it in Vista, but other WIndows versions are similar!

http://www.home-network-help.com/sim...e-sharing.html

Note, any wireless intenet within range can then connect! Be careful about passwords, both on the computer file systems, and the wireless ethernet connection itself!

Just 'share' the requires folders, and also set the sharing up in Media Player (under Library/Media Sharing).


Yes, there are numerous automatic backup programs, even Norton 360 does it, as well as anti-virus etc.

If you're talking about simply copying files from C drive to "the new" drive. Simply select the directories you want to copy, then right click on them, open the "new" drive, right click on it and select paste.

You need anything else to copy (or even move - but copy is safest) files and directories from one place to another.

And you must know how to select numerous files/directories at the same time, so you can do whole swathes in one go.

Perhaps everything can be copied at once, if your C drive is orderly enough, and everything you want to copy is in one directory.

Thanks v much for your help