Hi, I have an RT-N66U router. I turned on AiCloud and setup was pretty simple and straight forward. I'm able to open my browser and access the connected USB HD to be able to transfer files to and from the connected USB HDD by accessing from a PC which is not connected to my local network.
However, I realized this is not quite what I'ld like to do with this cloud storage. Ideally, I want to be able to Map the USB HD connected to the router as a network drive on my local PC so that it has a drive letter assignment on a PC that is not connected to my local network.
I run MS Outlook for work related Email using multiple PCs at different times throughout the day. The way MS outlook is configured on my PCs is that all of my Inbox mail is stored on a Work Server. I'm limited to about 200MB of Inbox Server space. So as my Inbox fills, I often need to move Inbox Email to my Local PC's HDD. The locally stored emails are saved in a single Outlook .PST file. This file is currently 6GB in size.
I would like to put this .PST file on the USB HDD which is connected to the router, and then configure Outlook to look at this mapped location for the .PST file, so that when I open up Outlook, from either of my PCs they will all be configured to point to the same Network mapped HD which will have a drive letter assignment which is needed for the Outlook PST file. Therefore, my saved email .PST file should be in sync across multiple PCs, just like my Inbox Email is, and will be independent of the PC I happen to be using since my backed up email .PST file should also be cloud based as well.
I read some good advise given to someone else who was trying to achieve a similar use case and here's what I have so far.
Set your VPN IP range to be within the same network as your LAN. For example, set DHCP to assign IPs in the 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.199 range. Then, set the VPN to assign IPs in the 192.168.1.200 to 192.168.1.210 range. That way your VPN clients will be able to directly route to the LAN clients over the VPN without requiring you to setup a static route on the VPN client (which is needed if you use the default 192.168.10.xx network range for VPN clients).
You should be able then to map network drives by using the file server IPs. Name resolution could be made to work, but it's always tricky and not too reliable over a PPTP VPN in my personal experience.
That seems like some good information, but it seems to assume someone already knows how to setup up a VPN, which I don't but am willing to learn but definitely need some more assistance.
Thanks in advance for any and all help,
Red
However, I realized this is not quite what I'ld like to do with this cloud storage. Ideally, I want to be able to Map the USB HD connected to the router as a network drive on my local PC so that it has a drive letter assignment on a PC that is not connected to my local network.
I run MS Outlook for work related Email using multiple PCs at different times throughout the day. The way MS outlook is configured on my PCs is that all of my Inbox mail is stored on a Work Server. I'm limited to about 200MB of Inbox Server space. So as my Inbox fills, I often need to move Inbox Email to my Local PC's HDD. The locally stored emails are saved in a single Outlook .PST file. This file is currently 6GB in size.
I would like to put this .PST file on the USB HDD which is connected to the router, and then configure Outlook to look at this mapped location for the .PST file, so that when I open up Outlook, from either of my PCs they will all be configured to point to the same Network mapped HD which will have a drive letter assignment which is needed for the Outlook PST file. Therefore, my saved email .PST file should be in sync across multiple PCs, just like my Inbox Email is, and will be independent of the PC I happen to be using since my backed up email .PST file should also be cloud based as well.
I read some good advise given to someone else who was trying to achieve a similar use case and here's what I have so far.
Set your VPN IP range to be within the same network as your LAN. For example, set DHCP to assign IPs in the 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.199 range. Then, set the VPN to assign IPs in the 192.168.1.200 to 192.168.1.210 range. That way your VPN clients will be able to directly route to the LAN clients over the VPN without requiring you to setup a static route on the VPN client (which is needed if you use the default 192.168.10.xx network range for VPN clients).
You should be able then to map network drives by using the file server IPs. Name resolution could be made to work, but it's always tricky and not too reliable over a PPTP VPN in my personal experience.
That seems like some good information, but it seems to assume someone already knows how to setup up a VPN, which I don't but am willing to learn but definitely need some more assistance.
Thanks in advance for any and all help,
Red
