accessing readyNAS problem

[cast4604]

If this is in the wrong section, I'm so sorry and please let me know ASAP! Thank you!

I'd never even heard of NAS until the IT guy at the lab I work at suddenly left for Germany and won't respond to emails, leaving me to figure out everything. I'm just an undergrad assistant and the professor is expecting me to fix this, but I have no idea what's going on. Any patience, or links to relevant information is greatly appreciated! I don't know if the information I'm giving is relevant or not, but I'll try my best.

The lab has a readyNAS NVX, and the professor has a new mac. The researchers' laptops and such can access the the shared drive on it while connected to the university wifi. With the PCs, they were set up by from files on an admin page in the department, where you could create new users, and new shares. Each computer that connects to the share drive should have a unique user name, and matching share. The share is the backup drive ( Z:\ ) for that computer. There is one mac set up with it, but no one remembers how it was done.

ALTHOUGH, I'm guessing setting up a shared drive user for my boss would come after getting access to the NAS, right?
I gave him this to see how it'd work, http://www.readynas.com/kb/faq/mac_osx/how_do_i_access_a_readynas_share_with_a_mac
He started, but when he gets to Network, he sees no entries. The instructions say "My Network" should be next, but there's nothing. He says the IP didn't seem to be right.

I guess my first question is: what other information from him do I need to continue researching and solving this problem? Is there anything I can try now?
Is there a different thread that I should read that would help me out?

Thank you so much for reading! Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[pastrychef]

I've never used a ReadyNAS before, but I'm assuming that the admin will need to create a login/password for your professor first.

That being said, you can try going to Finder, then click "Go" from the menu bar and select "Connect to Server..." from the drop down menu. A window should pop up and you can try clicking the "Browse" button. This should allow you to see the ReadyNAS and you should be able to select it.

After selecting it, you should login using the login/password provided by the admin.

 

[tyche]

Did any Mac's have access before? Does the NAS show up in Finder under Shared? I have an older ReadyNAS NV+ that my iMac connects too but no experience trying to set up unique shares visible only to a particular user.

In the ReadyNAS admin panel make sure the services/discovery services has bonjour running so OS X can find the server. For each share you specify what filesystems you want on it (AFP/SMB/NFS). I actually prefer SMB it seems easy to attach than AFP for the ReadyNAS.

Once you see it in Finder, you can 'Connect As' and log in with the unique user account and see what you get.

 

[Crazy Badger]

My first call would be to try connecting to the ReadyNAS (if you know it's IP address on the network, just stick that into Chrome - Safari sometimes has problems with the ReadyNAS interface) and check you get the management interface. If you do, you should be able to login (assuming you know the username [admin] and password [can't help there!]) and see what users/shares have been set-up. If you can't access the interface, the problem is more likely to be a network one.

I have one at home, and prefer connecting via AFP but SMB works fine too. Assuming it's set-up on your network correctly, it should appear in Finder under Shared, although you might have to click All... to see the shares. If the shares are protected by user, it should ask you for a username/password when you first connect but these can be stored in keychain for future access.

Good luck, as they can be a bit of a pain to get up and running, but once they are they tend to be pretty reliable (although a little slow) bits of kit.

 

[drsox]

If this is in the wrong section, I'm so sorry and please let me know ASAP! Thank you!

I'd never even heard of NAS until the IT guy at the lab I work at suddenly left for Germany and won't respond to emails, leaving me to figure out everything. I'm just an undergrad assistant and the professor is expecting me to fix this, but I have no idea what's going on. Any patience, or links to relevant information is greatly appreciated! I don't know if the information I'm giving is relevant or not, but I'll try my best.

The lab has a readyNAS NVX, and the professor has a new mac. The researchers' laptops and such can access the the shared drive on it while connected to the university wifi. With the PCs, they were set up by from files on an admin page in the department, where you could create new users, and new shares. Each computer that connects to the share drive should have a unique user name, and matching share. The share is the backup drive ( Z:\ ) for that computer. There is one mac set up with it, but no one remembers how it was done.

ALTHOUGH, I'm guessing setting up a shared drive user for my boss would come after getting access to the NAS, right?
I gave him this to see how it'd work, http://www.readynas.com/kb/faq/mac_osx/how_do_i_access_a_readynas_share_with_a_mac
He started, but when he gets to Network, he sees no entries. The instructions say "My Network" should be next, but there's nothing. He says the IP didn't seem to be right.

I guess my first question is: what other information from him do I need to continue researching and solving this problem? Is there anything I can try now?
Is there a different thread that I should read that would help me out?

Thank you so much for reading! Any advice is greatly appreciated!

I have several ReadyNAS units and they work fine with my MBA and my Mini. They are ProPioneer units, but all "old" units work the same.

First of all, have you installed and run RAIDar? See :http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/20684/
This will find all ReadyNAS units for you.

Otherwise you will need to type in : https://<local IP address>/admin/

Then you need to access the unit to check that AFP has been enabled and is running, so you will need the unit's administrator password. If you don't have that, then you are up s*** creek.
OR if you have a Win PC then you can access it via CIFS/SMB (if you only want to see the public shares).

Once you have admin access to the unit, you can see the shares, users and everything else.

Let me know specifically what you want to know. If I can't help, then post your question on the OSX forum on the ReadyNAS forum : http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=28&sid=d4917cb714aedff24deea512a075b32c. Lots of helpful folks are there.

From reading through your post it seems that each user has an individual share under their user name, hidden from all others. To manage this you will need to access to the User & Group Accounts under the Security tab in Frontview. Each user will have a login and a password. Once a user has logged in they can setup as many folders as they like under their user name. These folders aren't shares.

I have setup my OSX login screen to open my own user share on my NAS at startup. The folders in it just appear in Finder. I use these as my main OSX drive as well as a backup drive for CCC. I also have a Win drive that's mapped when I am on my Win PC.

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Good luck, as they can be a bit of a pain to get up and running, but once they are they tend to be pretty reliable (although a little slow) bits of kit.

Not in my experience. I've had 3 generations of ReadyNAS and they were all dead easy to setup and manage.
Also very fast - my current units go at >100MBps Write and >90MBps Read. This is via a CAT6 LAN.

 

[Crazy Badger]

Not in my experience. I've had 3 generations of ReadyNAS and they were all dead easy to setup and manage.
Also very fast - my current units go at >100MBps Write and >90MBps Read. This is via a CAT6 LAN.

Are you sure these aren't the x86 versions? I'm lucky to get half those speeds!

 

[drsox]

Are you sure these aren't the x86 versions? I'm lucky to get half those speeds!

Sorry, yes they are the x86 version. When I had the Sparc version I used to get 40MBps also.