Network Drives

When establishing a computer network for home or office, you will need to be sure your network drives do the job they were designed for. You will want to map a network drive that will allow you to store data at additional sites besides the H drive. A computer network can have many kinds of drives that serve a variety of purposes. Read your computer’s owner’s manual for an idea of what these drives are and how to make good use of them. The same username and password can be used to access all drives on your computer, or you can change them to keep each one separate for added security. You may want to use one of your drives as backup, and another for specialized data. For example, drives can be set up for data sets that include lists, like names and addresses, or for other kinds of information that is reserved for certain applications or uses. Drives can be shared among several users, like an entire department, for the same purpose. For example, if you are a high school teacher, the network for instructors

might include a drive for graduated students, or alumni. These can be grouped by the year of graduation, by grade point averages at the time of graduation, or other criteria that make them easy to use later. If your computer does not show any listed drives when you check for them, that means you will need to map some, or set them up, for later use. Follow the computer manual’s guidelines to map one or more drives. Then you will have to register users that you want to be able to access the drive. Include their usernames and passwords that may be specific only to these drives. Make sure to keep everyone’s confidential information in a secure location so that others cannot misuse it.