Profile on a Nas?

[Bossk128]

Just got a NAS and I'd like to keep my "My Documents" on said NAS (rather than locally).

What's the best way to do this? I know I can change location, which is good. Bu it would be nice if I could share the same My Docs with my laptop, and with my dual boot Win7 - is this a good idea?? There are alo other users (with seperate My Documents)....

Would it be better to cache the my docs/profile on the client PC and back up to the NAS on shutdown/overnight?

Or does this sound like I'm trying to detup roaming profiles? Although the ReadyNas Duo is reasonable clever, I don't think it can act as a Windows AD....

 

[dl763]

If you're going to put anything important on to a nas drive make sure it has back up!

 

[hideki]

I guess you could just put a shortcut to the folder on the NAS in your documents folder. That way you don't have to mess with the registry/changing the default mydocs location.

As for caching docs, i guess that would be covered by something like sync center, keeping offline files online for a network location. Im not sure how that would work since you would be caching on 2 pcs from the same source.

 

[ChileanLlama]

Is it Windows XP "My Documents" or Vista/7 "My Documents" you're thinking of?

IIRC XP is the root directory, whereas Vista/7 it is a folder within your Username folder.

To be honest, putting your whole profile on the NAS is a bad idea. The NAS will be pretty slow so loading up Appdata, Desktop and things like that are best left on your local machine.

But if you really want to do it, within XP you can right click, properties and move the folder to the NAS location, on Vista and 7 it's a bit harder because you have to do pretty much the same thing but with each folder in your Username folder.

 

[lsg1r]

Not going to say whether its a good idea or not as I've not done it with my docs but I've done the same with a folder (didn't work directly on the drive) for my music.

What I've done (and you will need the nas on all the time) is set up a mapped drive - on vista in network places click on folder and select map network drive, then give drive letter. Then its a case of moving my docs/music/pictures (I wouldn't bother with the full user folder) to the assigned drive.

It will be slower than having it on your system though as the nas will be slower in transfers.

 

[Bossk128]

Thanks all. I'm trying to make it as seamless (transparent even) as possible in operation. In this regard, I'm going to tell XP that my My Docs is on the NAS (right click properties I think on the My docs folder....). My media is already in a different share on the NAS, so my dosuments are just that - a collection of .docs and .xls, pretty small. also my NAS is conencted directly to the same router as the PC so should get 100Mbps duplex (or whatever the drive can achieve). I've not really tested it yet but I expect is to fast enough.

ChileanLama: On reflection I think you're right, there are some surprisingly large files stored in the profile proper. I'll keep that local.

Can anybody see a problem with using the same networked My Docs for multiple PCs? Any applications that save to the My Docs should just pick up the configs (who am I kidding, save game files ) regardless of machine? All I's have to worry about would be running the same app at both times on different clients, assuming that app uses My Docs, correct?