what are my options???

[NYbimmer]

hi all,

i heard through the grape vine that my bro bought me a laptop for X-mas. my issue is i have all my movies, mp3's and pictures on my desktop and i don't feel comfortable transferring them all to the laptop in case the laptop is dropped or stolen.

i was planing on using a spare computer i have to store the media files plus setup a per to per network between that PC my current desktop and the laptop. i figure if i map the drives on the computer with the media files it would work as if the files are right there on the laptop. my question is would this be the best way to share these files? how big of a strain would it be on the network to watch a movie on the laptop? would there be a way to access the files when I'm outside the house. I'm guessing there has to be a way to access the folders with my music from over the Internet i just don't know how.

if anyone can come up with a better way let me know please. also, my network is wireless. the computer doing the sharing probably will not be wireless. the router has 5 ethernet ports on it so i was planing on wiring the PC doing the sharing and keeping the other two wireless.

 

[Ben]

confused?

hi all,

i heard through the grape vine that my bro bought me a laptop for X-mas. my issue is i have all my movies, mp3's and pictures on my desktop and i don't feel comfortable transferring them all to the laptop in case the laptop is dropped or stolen.

So are you saying you don't want to just copy the files onto your laptop at all? Because as you probably know, if you copy them, they're going to be staying on your desktop as well. That way, you can have your stuff on both.

Just wanting to get that clear.

 

[NYbimmer]

i forgot to throw in "PC" after desktop. all the media files is on the secondary drive in my current PC. if i copy them to my laptop I'll have to upgrade the HD because it's just not big enough plus when i DL new stuff I'll have to worry about sending a copy to both computers...it's just going to become a headache after a while.

I'm going to go with what i have planned unless i hear other wise from you guys. i figure you guys know more about this than i do so if there's a better way to share these files between both computers please let me know. I'm not going to get around to setting everything up until wed. so if i can avoid wasting the time setting up just to realize it's not going to work the way i need it to that would be great.

if anyone knows of a program or setting that would allow me to access the folders the mp3's are in from over the Internet that would help a lot also. i like to post pics and vid. on other forums I'm on so the computer I'm planning on using to share the files will also double as my web server, this should make posting videos easier. the computer will be accessible from the Internet but using the web server to access mp3's will probably be impractical since IE will wanna DL every song i wanna play.

advise...help...comments...please...