A network drive, also known as a NAS (network attached storage) drive, is a storage device that connects to a home or office network instead of your computer. Some of the advantages of this are obvious: for example, you can get access files from a smartphone, tablet, or computer without having to plug the drive in.
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Other, perhaps less obvious, positives of NAS include things like automated backups and the ability to mirror data on two drives. In other words, NAS offers a flexible and protected way to manage Mac storage that’s far beyond that of standard external hard drives. Read along to learn how to map a network drive and avoid some common NAS mistakes.
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What is a network drive used for?
Whether it’s populated or diskless, has one bay or more than five, a network drive is typically used as an alternative to cloud storage. It may be easy to drag and drop files to something like Google Drive or Dropbox, but just a bit of drive mapping can make using a network drive a fantastic cloud alternative.
Some of network drive’s key advantages include:
Map network drive on macOS (one-time)
Nowadays, most NAS devices are seriously easy to map. Let’s say that you’ve been working on a document in your home office but have just remembered a key fact that you want to include. Time to make a quick edit from your wife’s laptop before you forget about it!
Network drive access can be obtained in three simple steps, provided you don’t mind having to repeat those steps if the connection drops, you restart your Mac, or the device is disconnected:
You can now access the relevant drive either via your desktop or the sidebar in Finder windows.
Map network drive on macOS (remount after reboot)
Maybe you have a server in your office with a connected network drive and want all your employees to be able to connect to it so they can collaborate on shared documents. If you want to keep a Mac connected to a network drive, even after restarting, the easiest way to do this is to follow the three steps above then add these:
Now, your network drive will be mapped and automatically remounted when you reboot your Mac. Network drives won’t, however, connect automatically if you’re using a different WiFi network.
Make a network drive accessible from Mac desktop
Depending on your settings, mounted drives may not always appear on your desktop. That’s not necessarily a problem if you don’t mind only being able to see connected servers in Finder window sidebars and open/save dialogues.
If, however, you want your NAS device to always be just one double-click away (in the same way that most people have Macintosh HD as a visible item on their desktop) just follow these steps:
Remount a mapped network drive with one click
Managing, or working across, multiple departments that each have their own network drive? In that case, it can be handy to create aliases of mapped network drive(s):
This might not sound like anything all that significant but, as the subheading suggests, you can use this alias to reconnect to a network drive with one click. Delete app in mac os. That can be very helpful if you need to keep jumping between different shared drives.
How to manage files with network-attached storage
In most cases, macOS’s default tools are sufficient for viewing, editing, and deleting files. That might change, however, if you’re using a NAS device. For example, it’s very easy to end up with a ton of duplicate files on your network drive where it’s likely you’ll be less concerned about making the most of your storage as you might be with a built in hard drive.
Gemini is a great tool for digging out any duplicate content on your drives, so you can ditch everything you no longer need while hanging onto backup documents, photos, etc.
For a more granular approach to file management, you might want to consider something like DCommander or Forklift. These apps both offer dual-pane file management, as well as features like batch renaming, copying, and deletion, in a more seamless way than your default Finder.
Although Forklift was designed with FTP management in mind, it’s become a favorite of network drive users because of how closely it resembles macOS. Billed as a Finder replacement app in parts of its marketing material, you won’t find an app much more native unless it comes out of Cupertino.
Plus, actually getting started with the app is incredibly simple:
If Forklift isn’t for you then you might prefer to take a look at DCommander, an approved Mac alternative of Total Commander for Windows. In addition to two side-by-side file panels that look very similar to those of Forklift, DCommander puts a wider range of commands and features (including quick file viewing, selective file unpacking, navigation history, and a great looking Dark Mode) at your fingertips without the need to leave the dual-panel display.
Both apps let you do things like mark certain drives as favorites, create and browse archives, and get previews of items. In short, they’re much like macOS’s Finder … only better. It’s difficult to overstate how much easier it becomes to manage Mac storage with dual-pane browsing until you try to organize your network drive without it!
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Effectively manage Mac storage day-to-day
Sony cybershot g software mac. Thanks to macOS, network drive mapping is a pretty simple process even if you’re not particularly tech-savvy. You might be out of luck if you’re hoping to access a NAS device from another network using standard macOS tools but, at present, that’s pretty much the only thing keeping network drives from competing with the cloud at the mainstream level.
If remote access isn’t such a concern for you and you’re using NAS as an alternative to cloud, then it’s definitely worth taking a look at programs like Forklift or DCommander to make file management easier once you’re done drive mapping, as well as Gemini to ensure that your NAS device isn’t filling up with duplicate files you don’t need.
Best of all, the software mentioned above is available for a free trial through Setapp, a collection of over 150 high-quality macOS applications from the best developers around. Manage your Mac effectively today!
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If there’s one thing you need to remember when dealing with high-tech devices, such as laptops and desktops, is that you should always have a recent backup on hand. While it’s true that Macs are as dependable as computers go, no one is protected from their processor overheating, battery dying, files being corrupted by malware, or just a spilled cup of coffee.
External hard drives have been around for decades. First they connected to your computer through USB-A ports and could hold just a few dozen gigabytes. Eventually, they learned to transfer files over WiFi and grew up in size to a few terabytes — becoming de facto the best personal cloud storage available to most people.
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But with the explosion of smartphones and streaming services, the amount of media data being saved on our devices has greatly exceeded what regular hard drives can offer. Today, most of us need a robust and expendable home cloud storage solution that’s able to protect our data seamlessly in the background.
What Is A NAS Hard Drive?
NAS (or network attached storage) in many ways is just the right answer for those who want to upgrade from outdated external hard drives and beginner My Cloud app look-alikes.
A network attached storage device is not only capable of wirelessly storing everything you’ve ever created (they generally start at about 2 TB) but also divide its capacity between a few people (so every family member could have their own drive, for example), stream media to Apple TV or Bluetooth speakers directly, and act as a central hub for all storage, with all your other hard drives connected to it.
So let’s look at the best NAS for Mac on the market in 2020, covering every target audience segment.
Simple: Western Digital My Cloud Home
When you just want to graduate from an external hard drive to a network attached storage for Mac, there’s no better candidate than WD My Cloud Home.
Western Digital doesn’t even call this network storage a NAS drive but rather addresses it as a personal cloud storage device. Still, My Cloud Home encompasses all the attributes of grownup NAS drives without the price tag. It goes from 2 to 8 TB in storage capacity, can save all your information via WiFi automatically, allows remote access through a My Cloud app, features shared folders as well as individual volumes, and is capable of streaming to Sonos, Google Chromecast, and more — all starting at just $159.99.
Powerful: Western Digital My Cloud Expert Series EX2 Ultra
If you want to combine the ease of use we’ve all come to expect from WD devices with a power of true NAS storage, take a look at the WD My Cloud Expert series.
Sophos versus avast for mac 2015. The EX2 Ultra is a real NAS drive that could come unpopulated (without hard drives) so you can install your own storage or take up to 28 TB right from the manufacturer. Unlike My Cloud Home, EX2 Ultra introduces RAID (redundant array of independent disks) options that let its two hard drives clone each other and carry the same information for maximum protection.
In addition, WD My Cloud Expert EX2 Ultra is powered by a dual-core processor for ultra-fast streaming and encrypts your hard drive volumes by default.
Affordable: Buffalo LinkStation 220D
In some cases, you might care less about how intuitive your NAS storage is, what you’re really after is a cheap NAS with good security built in. That’s where you should try Buffalo LinkStation 220D.
While LinkStation 220D might not win any awards for its user-friendliness, it’s a straightforward unpopulated NAS for Mac that starts at $119.99 and includes RAID support (with an additional USB-A on the back) as well as drag-and-drop backups.
You could set up a shared folder through Buffalo’s Navigator app, but it would be more difficult than you think. Same with getting your iTunes streaming server to work. Overall, good enough for straightforward tasks.
Advanced: Synology DiskStation DS218
Stepping into high-end but still consumer-oriented NAS storage solutions, we can find Synology DiskStation DS218. It comes unpopulated to let you combine your own storage devices and features a Gigabit Ethernet port for connecting to your router as well as three USB-As for any other storage volumes you might be using.
DiskStation DS218 is RAID-enabled and can act as a media server with real-time 4K video transcoding to Apple TV or any other player — all running on a quad-core 1.4 GHz processor. Some would say DiskStation might simply be too much for a casual user, and they will be right. But for some, it’s just what they were looking for all along.
Professional: Drobo 5N2
Those who work in the fields of photography, animation, or video production know how much unique data could be worth. From that perspective, Drobo 5N2 is not an expensive device at all, although it starts at about $550 unpopulated.
Drobo 5N2 features five hard drive slots, some of which can be used for RAID and some for actually expanding the NAS storage capacity. Two Gigabit Ethernet ports can be combined into one to provide astonishing transfer speed for the high-end devices that can handle it. This NAS even features its own internal battery for a complete fail-proof setup.
How to properly back up your Mac
Whether you’re using NAS or a regular external hard drive for your backup plan, you need to know how to approach backups in a comprehensive manner, so you don’t forget any important files.
Get Backup Pro is one of the most versatile backup managers you can find. It instantly connects to your NAS drive and offers incremental backups on a set schedule or cloning options that allow you to reboot your Mac from an external drive should it break. Get Backup Pro’s speed and reliability are unparalleled, far exceeding those of Time Machine, for example.
How to recover lost files from an external drive
https://toolsbrown639.weebly.com/freedcamp-app-for-mac.html. Mistakes happen and regardless how robust your backup solution is, there would be a moment when you’d accidentally delete a file not backed up anywhere else, be it from your Mac or an external drive. What do you do now?
Disk Drill is master data recovery software that’s able to get into the deepest corners of your data volumes and retrieve information that you thought was forever gone. Your best friend here is to act quickly and launch Disk Drill right after you saw a much-needed file disappear — that’s why keeping this app in your toolkit at all times is a true secret lifesaver.
How to make the most out of home cloud storage
Nowadays, most of us have already signed up for all the free tiers at all the most popular cloud storage providers: DropBox, Box, OneDrive, Google One, and so on. https://yellowunited332.weebly.com/dmg-dpbp.html. Some of us even have paid plans. The problem is all of them being scattered in various places and easy to forget.
CloudMounter offers a genius solution to gathering your cloud network storage solutions (from Amazon S3 to Backblaze) in one place by mounting them on your Mac as real hard drives, essentially folders like any other. This provides you with a new world of possibilities when it comes to searching through your files, ensuring proper encryption, and effectively transferring data.
Synology Mac App
As you can see, picking the best NAS hard drive has a wealth of advantages over using a regular external hard drive. What’s better, you can enhance this experience even further by mounting all cloud network storage as local drives with CloudMounter, backing up files securely with Get Backup Pro, and recovering anything that’s lost with Disk Drill.
Best of all, CloudMounter, Get Backup Pro, and Disk Drill are available to you absolutely free for seven days through Setapp, a platform of more than 170 outstanding apps for your Mac. And you can try them all today at no cost to see how else you can improve your daily life without any effort on your part.
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