Creating a Network Drive for three very different computers with no internet access

[thansen971]

So my aunt has a weird situation that she wants me to do. She a has a computer from 2002 with windows XP, a 2009 computer running Windows 7, and a 2012 computer also running Windows 7. She does not have internet at her house and uses them exclusively for photo editing.

She also has an external hard drive holding all 700 GB of pictures she wants to edit. The external drive is connected to her newest computer because its the fastest.

**the problem**

She has a really old photo editor on her 2002 computer that she doesn't want to get rid of and wants to use that to edit all of her photos.

If i get a basic gigabit switch from best buy and some Cat6 ethernet cables could i connect them all to a switch and create a network drive so she could access her photos on her old PC through the network drive? basically so she wouldnt have to constantly plug and unplug her external drive.

Any help is much appreciated, thank you all.

 

[kanewolf]

First, you need to get her to backup her photos. 700GB to lose because of a drive failure is catastrophic. Since I assume these pictures are important to her, she should have two copies PLUS an off-site copy. Since she doesn't have internet, the best she can do is create a disk copy and give it to you or someone else to keep at a different physical location.

A gigabit switch should allow you to share the USB drive on a network. You will have to manually assign IP addresses since there is not a DHCP server in this network.