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I have a wireless router at home which has a hard drive plugged into it. This network provides no internet access, but it allows me to access the external hard drive. I also have another wireless network that I connect to, which does have internet access. I'm wondering if I can always be connected to the external hard drive while simultaneously being connected to the separate network with internet access?

How would I achieve that?

Thanks!

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2 Answers 2

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Yes, this is quite doable.

The easiest way to do it would be to configure the router with the hard drive with a static IP address in a different range to the router providing Internet (for example 172.16.1.x is seldom used but allocated for internal use). Configure the NIC in your PC which connects to it with a static IP address in the same range with the netmask of 255.255.255.0 (assuming you use 172.16.1.x for both devices). DO NOT SPECIFY A GATEWAY for this device.

Your Internet connection will presumably provide a DHCP connection with a gateway, so most traffic will go out that way, however traffic to your NAS/Router will go through the static route.

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You could create a bridge to connect to both networks at the same time, remember to set your metric higher on the internet connected network. I don't recommend this as it leaves your hard drive network exposed to anyone with wireless access. To prevent this you'd need 2 network interfaces and connect to both, again setting internet connection to a higher metric.

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