downloading a file directly to a mapped network drive

Ksyder

Golden Member
Feb 14, 2006
1,829
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Just have a question, the issue is that I typically use my wireless laptop around the house for internet surfing, and have a mapped network drive that is on the wired lan. Lately when i download files I'll just save them directly to the network drive just to make things easier to find.

The question is, when I initiate the download to my laptop with the save location being on the wired lan, is the file being transferred to the laptop and then over to the network drive or is windows networking somehow smart enough to go directly from the router to the network drive and bypass the laptop completely?
 

OVerLoRDI

Diamond Member
Jan 22, 2006
5,490
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81
"Windows networking somehow smart", you answered your own question right there. I HIGHLY doubt windows is that smart. It probably goes from your laptop to the network drive.
 

imagoon

Diamond Member
Feb 19, 2003
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SMB (mapped drives) is not 'smart' in that sense. You can use other protocols to do a "download to the network drive" type thing. FTP can do it if configured correctly, FXP etc. If you want to bypass the laptop entirely, use something like RDP or vnc to control the server directly.
 

Pantlegz

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2007
4,627
4
81
It would go from your laptop to your network drive, but you should be able to save it directly to the shared drive without downloading it to your laptop and then copying to your shared drive, if thats what you were asking. As far as when imagoon is talking about I have no idea but he's pretty smart and know what he's talking about... most of the time.
 

JackMDS

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 25, 1999
29,527
415
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The issue is Not a matter of smart.

Files is Not Ice cream that can be transferred here and there as long as it does not melt, and a Router is Not a Barman that can be told give a Drink to X and Y.

The protocol, the stacks, the TCP/IP, etc. are all on the original computer that initiate the download.

So the file cannot be downloaded directly elsewhere. The chunks of the files are downloaded to the temp directory of the Browser and saved on the mapped drive.

FTP on a NAS is a different story since the ftp server/client is already embedded in the NAS firmware.
 

Emulex

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2001
9,759
1
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yeah you could use ftp in FXP mode to command two ftp servers to passively transfer between each other (ala FLASHFXP) - warez scene needed this since a dial up user could move massive amounts of files between two high speed servers.