Configuring USB on a Tenda router. Share files on a USB flash drive or external hard drive

Configuring USB on a Tenda router. Share files on a USB flash drive or external hard drive

Tenda has many models of routers with a USB port. (AC9, AC10U, AC15, 4G630, AC18, D301). USB port allows you to connect a regular flash drive or external hard drive to the router (HDD) and set up sharing of this drive from all the devices on your home network. You can set up both an FTP server and normal network access to the unit (Samba). The network drive can be accessed from virtually any device. From Windows computers, Mac OS and Android mobile devices, without any problem. Unfortunately, for some reason I did not find DLAN support in the AC10U configuration. This function is most likely not supported by this router. With its help, access to photos, videos and music on the TV (which supports DLNA) can be easily organized. The AC15, for example, is DLNA compatible.

There are not many settings related to the “File Sharing” feature on Tenda routers. But everything you need is there and it is very simply organized. It is possible to change the access rights to the drive for the “Guest” user. Read-only files or read-write files. For example, only you can copy, modify, and delete new files on the drive. Other users will only be able to see them.

Anyway, first we need to connect a USB drive, or an external hard drive, to the Tenda router. I’m going to use a normal flash drive. My router is a Tenda AC10U. This particular model supports hard drives up to 2TB. I have not tried it, it is what the manufacturer says. Connect our unit to the USB port of the Tenda router.

The light on the router should illuminate with a USB icon (if present). The drive is connected, now you can proceed to setup.

Configure file sharing (FTP and Samba) on a Tenda router

Go to the router settings at http://tendawifi.com. If you don’t know how to do it, or if it doesn’t work, see these instructions.

The USB drive should appear on the home page of the web interface.

If you click on it, you will be able to see the capacity of the drive and the amount of memory available. You can also disable it there, or go directly to the USB application center.

In principle, file sharing already works. To see the settings and access address of the network drive, go to “USB Application” and select “File Sharing”.

There are three blocks with settings there:

FTP server. Settings: Encoding type – it’s best not to change anything here unless you have to. Allow Internet access: You can enable access to your FTP server over the Internet. But you must have a white, static, external IP address for this feature to work. I have not tested this function. The LAN IP address is the IP address of our local FTP server. From this address you can access the server. For example, through a browser.

Samba server. There are no settings here, just the address to access the network drive for Windows and Mac OS. You have to write it in the explorer. Or connect it as a network drive. I will cover it in more detail later in the article.

User settings. By default, two users are already created there: administrator and guest. They have different access rights to the drive. The administrator has write/read access and the guest has only read access. The default username for the administrator is admin. The password is also admin. The password can be changed. You can also change the Guest account username and password, if necessary.

Everything is as simple and straightforward as possible. I only recommend changing the administrator password.

How can I access the unit via FTP?

Just go to ftp://192.168.0.1:21 in your browser. You will be prompted for a username and password. To log in as an administrator, you must enter the appropriate username and password.

This is how the drive files are displayed:

You can use different programs to access the files. For example, the FileZilla Client. For Android, there is a handy app called ES Explorer. It has an FTP connection option.

Configuring access to a Samba server

A hard drive, or USB thumb drive, connected to the Tenda router can be opened as a normal folder. To do this, you just have to go to the address in Windows Explorer: \\192.168.0.1. If you have a Mac OS computer, the address will be smb://192.168.0.1.

To log in, enter the username and password of the required account, which are specified in the Tenda router settings.

This will open our unit.

You can view the files, delete them, copy new files, etc. But this depends on the rights assigned to the account with which you have accessed the unit. Do not forget this.

To avoid having to type this address each time, right-click on the drive and select “Main Network Drive.”

In the next window, you just have to click on “Done”.

The network drive will now always appear in the “This Computer” folder.

From Android mobile devices, the network drive can be accessed through the same ES Explorer app. If it doesn’t work, write in the comments. I’ll show you how to do it.