Buffalo LinkStation NAS - Viewing on Samsung TV...

ChristianBeccy

I've got a Buffalo LS510D56c NAS, it's connected to my PC as a basic storage device for my home business and allows me to share some basic business files across my home network, stored in a partition called "N:". That all appears to work fine (although I don't demand much from it).

It has TONS of free space, so I thought I'd try out playing network content on my Samsung TV for the first time!

Despite clicking all the visible NAS folders that I can see from my PC, I can't find one that will allow me to copy a file from my PC desktop onto the NAS that I can then see on the TV. In the root of the NAS, I've got what appear to be pre-defined folders called 'Folders', 'Music', 'Photos' and 'Video', but I am unable to place any file in those folders from my PC.

I do have a second storage partition on there, called "O:". I have been able to put the file in there, along with several others, but cannot browse to that on my TV.

I'm sure I'm being an idiot, but it's got me scratching my head...

mickevh

What OS does your PC run...?

The "drive handles" (N: O: etc.) are what your PC calls the the mounted storage, not the NAS.

Using drive handles is rather "old school" these days, nearly everything has transitioned to using something called "UNC paths" that look something like this.. \\NASNAME\Music  \\NASNAME\Photos etc. (In "big business" drive handles became problematic because there weren't enough of them - only 26 - and it was sometimes challenging to achieve consistently when workstations grew more and more local resources such as CD-ROM, tape, scanner, etc. etc.)

On your NAS, to make any folder (anywhere, it doesn't need to be in the root) available on the network you need to create something called a "share." The exact nomenclature varies, but have a look at the NAS and see if you can find the setting for "sharing" of something similar. Creating a "share" pointing to particular folder effectively "publishes" that share onto the network - with modern kit the NAS also often uses a protocol that "advertises" the share. Share names do not have to be the same name as the folder they point to, but often they are.

Thence on the workstations, it should simply be a matter of teaching the workstations where the shares are, and off you go.

On a (modern) Windows OS, one quick was to assess what shares your NAS is advertising is to open up a Windows Explorer and in the address bar right at the top type in \\NASNAME (obviously, substitute your NAS's own name) and after a few seconds you should get a list of all the shares your NAS is currently advertising.

The names of the share are not significant for media streaming, they could be called anything, it's just that out the box the NAS has probably named a few that people might find useful in organising their data (Photos, Music, Videos, etc.) but I'll bet if you really want to, you could put (say) a photo in your music folder and you'd be able to read it as a photo just fine. I, for example, have multiple "video" shares with names like "Sitcoms" "Movies" "Dramas" etc. - you can call the shares whatever you like.

next010

It sounds like the video folder is access restricted, you'd have to either disable that restriction or add the video folder to the admin/user group you used to login to the server from on Windows. I think this is the manual for your model if you look at page 58 it shows the region for changing that.

ChristianBeccy

Edit - Sorted now