Mapped network drive over internet

[Nik Weaver]

Hello.. I've spent days scouring the web for an answer to this and haven't come up with much.
I am a music producer, and I travel a lot. I have two computers that I work on most often. One, is a windows 7 desktop I built a year or two ago, and the other is a Windows 8 laptop I bought new.

My desktop has an internal HDD dedicated to my work, for example, my sample library, my program installers, my presets, MIDI files, sheet music, etc. I have this drive mapped as a network drive on my laptop, so that where ever in my house I am working, it's like I have this drive right in my laptop even though it's not. I can load samples and projects relying on samples from this drive quickly with no issues.

My question is, how can I set up my desktop, so that I can have this configured and working from anywhere, provided I have an internet connection?

My best guess from experience and what I've found on the web is VPN, but I have little experience with VPN and I'm not sure the best way to set this up. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
-Nik

 

[kanewolf]

What you would have to do is setup a VPN to your home network so that your laptop "looks" like it is part of the LAN. Your router may have the capability to be a VPN endpoint. You would also need to setup a DDNS (Dynamic DNS) so that as your home's public IP address changes you have a way to find it.

This should probably be moved to NETWORKING since it really is a network not storage thing.

 

[Nik Weaver]

What you would have to do is setup a VPN to your home network so that your laptop "looks" like it is part of the LAN. Your router may have the capability to be a VPN endpoint. You would also need to setup a DDNS (Dynamic DNS) so that as your home's public IP address changes you have a way to find it.

This should probably be moved to NETWORKING since it really is a network not storage thing.

That's basically the answer I had come up with, but I don't really know how to go about doing that...any chance you could point me in the right direction? Thanks.

 

[kanewolf]

What you would have to do is setup a VPN to your home network so that your laptop "looks" like it is part of the LAN. Your router may have the capability to be a VPN endpoint. You would also need to setup a DDNS (Dynamic DNS) so that as your home's public IP address changes you have a way to find it.

This should probably be moved to NETWORKING since it really is a network not storage thing.

That's basically the answer I had come up with, but I don't really know how to go about doing that...any chance you could point me in the right direction? Thanks.

What router do you have? That will determine if it is even possible with your current hardware.

 

[Nik Weaver]

What you would have to do is setup a VPN to your home network so that your laptop "looks" like it is part of the LAN. Your router may have the capability to be a VPN endpoint. You would also need to setup a DDNS (Dynamic DNS) so that as your home's public IP address changes you have a way to find it.

This should probably be moved to NETWORKING since it really is a network not storage thing.

That's basically the answer I had come up with, but I don't really know how to go about doing that...any chance you could point me in the right direction? Thanks.

What router do you have? That will determine if it is even possible with your current hardware.

I have a Linksys WRT54G/GL/GS with DD-WRT v24-sp2 (07/22/09) firmware

 

[kanewolf]

Here and here are WIKI pages for setting up VPN with DD-WRT. Here is the WIKI on setting up DDNS.

Here is a different tutorial on setting up VPN with DD-WRT.

 

[Nik Weaver]

Here and here are WIKI pages for setting up VPN with DD-WRT. Here is the WIKI on setting up DDNS.

Here is a different tutorial on setting up VPN with DD-WRT.

Thanks a lot, I haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out with those links.

 

[kanewolf]

Depending on the speed of you internet connection you MIGHT need a newer router. VPN termination takes a fair amount of CPU power. Your WRT is pretty old. If you successfully get it to work, I would recommend you get a newer and more powerful router to improve your performance.

 

[Nik Weaver]

Depending on the speed of you internet connection you MIGHT need a newer router. VPN termination takes a fair amount of CPU power. Your WRT is pretty old. If you successfully get it to work, I would recommend you get a newer and more powerful router to improve your performance.

Thanks again, I'll post back when I get it working.

 

[Nik Weaver]

Depending on the speed of you internet connection you MIGHT need a newer router. VPN termination takes a fair amount of CPU power. Your WRT is pretty old. If you successfully get it to work, I would recommend you get a newer and more powerful router to improve your performance.

Thanks again, I'll post back when I get it working.