Connecting a Mac and Windows PC together

[Taz]

I've got a Mac and a Windows PC only home network (i.e. plugged into my broadband router with an Ethernet cable). I want to be able to move files easily between the two machines. As they are already connected to the same network, how can I connect my Mac to the PC so I can browse the C: and D: drives? The PC is running Windows 10. I'm looking for the most secure solution as I'm reluctant to reduce the level of security on either machine.

[peterb]

SMB is your friend (server message block)

There is a good guide here https://computers.tutsplus.com/tutor...s-8--mac-46276

Effectively you use one machine as a host for a file server using the SMB protocol.

[b0redom]

Actually WinSCP (on the Windows box) is probably just as good. Pointy clicky interface.

[Taz]

Thanks guys. I used SMB in the end.

I set up a new shared folder on the Windows PC and set up the sharing permissions very carefully, limiting access to it for only one account. Before I could do this I had to enable File & Print Sharing in Windows 10.

After the share was set up I used used 'Connect To Server' on the Mac (CMD - K keyboard shortcut from Finder) and entered smb://192.168.xxx.xxx. The share I created was listed and I could select it to 'mount' it on the Mac. I used the option to specify a local user in the Windows PC and authenticated myself and the share was accessible.

All plain sailing after that with read/write capability to the Windows share.

Going forward I'll just use that one share as file exchange directory between the Mac and the PC.

[peterb]

Glad it all worked! I use SMB on a Linux based server and connect Linux, windows and Mac machines seamlessly to it.

[Taz]

Just resurrecting this thread as I feel I could do with an additional requirement now. The SMB share is working well and allows me to quickly transfer videos I've created in X-Plane 11 on my Windows 10 PC to my Mac for editing. Some of these are several GB in size.

However, the SMB method requires me to have both the PC and Mac switched on at the same time.

Sometimes I just want to transfer a small text file or screenshot from the Windows 10 PC to my Mac. I don't always have my PC running.

With this in mind, I think a file-sharing service would be the kind of thing I'm looking for. Is there a recommended one that works well for Windows and Mac? I want to be able to drag and drop or sync selected files (or a folder) so that I can later download them on my Mac. In terms of bandwidth/storage, it'll be minimum as I just want to share text files and screenshots every now and then.

Is DropBox the solution or are there better ones out there (for free)?

[peterb]

https://wetransfer.com

Free for transfers up to 2Gb f files at a time. Downloads available for 7 days.

Or Dropbox, (as you mentioned) works with Windows/Mac/Linux.

However, why not just use a USB drive?

[Biscuit]

Google drive gives you 15GB for free I think

[Taz]

Google Drive seems to be working okay for me for ad-hoc transfers. I could use a USB stick / external HDD but I'm too lazy to plug things in!

[peterb]

USB drive will be the fastest!

(This reminds me of a thread, possibly here, about 14 years ago or more, about the fastest way of transferring a 500MB file to (iirc) South Africa. The conclusion was that a USB drive in the post was probably as fast as anything at the time!)

[Biscuit]

USB drive will be the fastest!

(This reminds me of a thread, possibly here, about 14 years ago or more, about the fastest way of transferring a 500MB file to (iirc) South Africa. The conclusion was that a USB drive in the post was probably as fast as anything at the time!)

I think its only recently that post production houses have started transferring files over networks, they still favoured courier.

[Ttaskmaster]

Connecting a Mac and Windows PC together

Isn't that the same concept as crossing the streams, in Ghostbusters?

[peterb]

I think its only recently that post production houses have started transferring files over networks, they still favoured courier.

Yes, uncompressed HD video files are ginormous - and are only going to get bigger!

Isn't that the same concept as crossing the streams, in Ghostbusters?

The Unix Open Source implementation of the Server Message Block Protocol is well developed and very stable and works very well.