Ok, so I have windows 7 on a machine, and I went to map a drive, and it refused. I do not have the dashboard installed on that specific machine, so I was trying to do it by hand.
It’s a Drobo FS.
I have several users defined for shares, including an “admin”, “Trimble”, etc.
I don’t want to use the “everyone” / public access setting for the folder that I need to access
I would like this drive mapping to use specific userID and password in the mapping. This machine also houses my plex server, which would need a different userID to access videos, which are stored on the FS.
Mapping a drive works fine on my machines with the dashboard installed. Also, connecting to the shares via other devices (not windows) seems to work fine… (an app on my iphone works fine, media players work fine, etc) The problem only seems to occur on windows machines… Is it a domain thing? do I need something like Drobo\Trimble as my userID?
The purpose of this drive mapping is for home security video recordings, specifically due to having a nanny in the house. The nanny has access to our wifi, so I don’t want her being able to connect to the share with her own laptop to delete video records… but the I’m trying to map need to have read-write access to save the video files there.
Anyone know the trick? is dashboard required for windows machines?
Yes you could access, map network drive on a Windows PC without having Drobo Dashboard installed.
Think of the Drobo Dashboard as a “Admin” management for the Drobo… Creating user accounts, Shares …etc. Of cos’ if the Dashboard is installed on the PC… you can use it to mount any Shares as the Dashboard login user.
Say, without a Dashboard installed. You just basically access and map network drive like what you would do normally for normal Windows Shared Folder. Nothing special. Is the same.
Method 1 - UNC Method access Shared Folder on the Drobo FS, 5N and B800fs:
\Drobo_IP or \Drobo_Name
Example:
\192.168.88.12
or
\DroboFS (whatever your Drobo name is)
Windows will then prompt you to login. You login with the username and password on the Drobo.
Method 2 - Using Windows Explorer access the Drobo Server
Open My Computer or the Windows Explorer
On the Left panel, you will see that is a Section “Network”… expand it…
You should be able to see the DroboFS, Drobo 5N, or B800fs server icon.
Click on the Drobo Server icon … you will see list of the Shared Folder in the Drobo. Click any of the Shared and it will prompt you to login with your Drobo username and password.
Method 3 - Mapping a Network Drive…
Open Windows Explorer or My Computer
Click on “Computers”, you should see the “Map Network Drive”
Click on it …choose a Drive Letter say Z: then click “Broswe” to scroll thru’ the network and find the Drobo and select the Shared Folder… follow the instruction and prompt to login.
There you are… no Drobo Dashboard on the Windows PC… accessing any Shared Folder in a DroboFS, 5N and B800fs… just like you would with any Windows File Shared Server. No tricks at all…