Bridging a NAS and a Mac mini

[Chparigi]

Hi everyone

I have a problem connecting my seagate NAS to my network as well as my mac mini. I'll try to explain the problem here:

I have a Seagate 2-bay NAS and a Mac Mini mid 2011. I have the Mac and the NAS in the same room in my apartment, which unfortunately is in the other room as the router. I want them both to be connected wired to the Network using a LAN cable, but i really don't want to have another cable across the apartment, and still i want both devices to be connected to the network using a LAN-cable because of the huge impact WLAN would have on the speed.

And here i've been running my head to the wall lately, because how can that be possible?

The NAS has 2 LAN-ports, and my mac mini has 2 lan ports, when using the thunderbolt to ethernet stick. I've tried to setups:

The Mac mini connected with Lan to the router, and to the NAS, and then making a bridge, but that doesn't seem to work?

Connecting the NAS to the router, and connecting the Mac mini, hoping it would work as a bridge, but that doesn't work either.

I know it's an extremely detailed and weird case, but i hope that you could point out one of the above methods that should work, or maybe a third one?

Best regards

 

[robertojorge]

Hi, you should connect the mac to the router and the Nas to the router aswell. Leave dhcp on router or define ip for the mac and for the Nas.

I didnt understand well the cables problem, but for what i understood you may use power line adapters to minimize bandwith loss, not so fast as wired but way much faster than wifi.

Hope it helps
Best regards
RJ

 

[mcnallym]

Not aware that NAS boxes will bridge the connection.

Is there a reason cannot have the NAS local to the router and then the mini at the end of the existing cable.

If it's a NAS box then accessed on network so won't be any slower connected directly to the Router.

 

[mvmanolov]

why not just buy a small 5 port switch for $30 or so and connect the router and one lan cable to it and then the NAS and mini to it as well?

 

[jbarley]

A switch something like one of these connected to your existing LAN cable, then connect your Mini and Nas to the switch should do the trick nicely.

 

[eschw95458]

Chparigi, we don't have quite enough information. There are two scenarios, depending on what your are trying to accomplish
You did not specify if you need to access the NAS with the mac only, or if other devices on your network will need access??
If you need access to the NAS from multiple devices, then as others have pointed out, find a nice 5 port gigabit switch and place it by your mac and NAS
OR if you just need to access the NAS from the mac, hook one port from the mac to the router and make a note of the ip address it gets assigned (typical 192.168.0.xxx ) then on the macs other port manually assign ip numbers to both the mac and NAS ( you should use a different one in the 192.168.x.x range or something in the 10.10.x.x or 172.x.x.x)
Example Port 1 on mac gets assigned 192.168.1.2. Assign port 2 on mac 172.16.1.1 and NAS 172.16.1.2

 

[762999]

Hi everyone

I have a problem connecting my seagate NAS to my network as well as my mac mini. I'll try to explain the problem here:

I have a Seagate 2-bay NAS and a Mac Mini mid 2011. I have the Mac and the NAS in the same room in my apartment, which unfortunately is in the other room as the router. I want them both to be connected wired to the Network using a LAN cable, but i really don't want to have another cable across the apartment, and still i want both devices to be connected to the network using a LAN-cable because of the huge impact WLAN would have on the speed.

And here i've been running my head to the wall lately, because how can that be possible?

The NAS has 2 LAN-ports, and my mac mini has 2 lan ports, when using the thunderbolt to ethernet stick. I've tried to setups:

The Mac mini connected with Lan to the router, and to the NAS, and then making a bridge, but that doesn't seem to work?

Connecting the NAS to the router, and connecting the Mac mini, hoping it would work as a bridge, but that doesn't work either.

I know it's an extremely detailed and weird case, but i hope that you could point out one of the above methods that should work, or maybe a third one?

Best regards

assuming your router is on a network like 192.168.2.1 and your mini get an address between 192.168.2.2 and 192.168.2.254

you could setup a cable between your NAS and secondary network adapter of your mini. You can configure your NAS to be with IP 192.168.1.1 and your secondary mini adapter to be 192.168.1.2. The NAS adapter doesn't need a default gateway or DNS. Just put the address and subnet mask 255.255.255.0.

On your mini, one of the adapter will have an IP from the router (with DNS info and a gateway). The second adapter doesn't need a gateway nor DNS information. Only the ip and subnet mask (255.255.255.0).

that way, it will modify the routing table of the mini and you will be able to reach both the NAS and the router..


just connect your NAS by IP .

nothing to buy..

 

[kappaknight]

You can also put the NAS next to the router if you don't want two cables across the apt. It really doesn't matter where the NAS sits as long as it's out of the way and quiet.