Android Guide - Share your SD Card over a Home Network (ROOT Required)

If you hate using a USB cable to transfer files from your phone's SD Card (or FAT32 internal storage) to your PC, a Samba file sharing server is arguably one of the best solutions available - assuming you have a rooted phone, that is.... ************ Note: From my own personal experience, Samba Filesharing offers more functionality and better response times than FTP servers (such as Swiftp) provide. However, sustained transfer speeds are typically lower (2-3 Mb/Sec). ************ Samba Filesharing is a free app for Android, which lets you share your SD card over a WiFi Home Network. In this video, I'll take you through the basic steps of configuring the server on your phone, as well as the stages required to connect to your device over a home network. Play Store link here: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.funkyfresh.samba Minimum Requirements (from developer): - Android device running Android 2.0.1 or above - The phone must be rooted - You should have Superuser 2.3.6.1 or later installed Specification of demo equipment: - Rooted HTC Sensation running Android 4.0.3 (ICS) - Superuser v3.0.7 (Su binary v3.0.3.2) - Samba Filesharing Build: 111107m - Windows 7 PC (x64) Note for NON ROOTED viewers: If you don't have a rooted phone, you may want to consider using the FTP server method instead. I've created a video for that method here: http://youtu.be/TwjYm7fWwB8. *** HELP & FAQ: *** ADDITIONAL OPERATING SYSTEMS: Details for the following Operating Systems (coming soon): -Windows Vista (method shown in video should work) -Windows XP (pending...) -Mac OS X (pending...) ASSIGNING A DRIVE LETTER: Assigning a drive letter to your phone's SD card isn't something that I recommend as a standard procedure over the network - for most people it will just lead to headaches. Having said that, I can see a small handful of situations (like certain sync software) where it might be helpful. Assuming that the Samba Server is up and running on your phone, your SD Card can be allocated a drive letter by using the Map Network Drive Wizard in Windows. In the Wizard, simply select a drive letter, then click the 'Browse' button. Navigate to the phone's SD card from the list of networked devices, select it and press OK. I recommend that you un-check the option to reconnect at logon, then press finish. Job done. *** TROUBLESHOOTING *** APP HANGS WHEN STARTING/STOPPING SERVER: When testing this app, I initially experienced this issue myself. In my case, the phone would report that the app had stopped responding, but if I tapped 'Wait' (instead of 'Close') at the prompt, the server would fire up shortly afterwards. The problem turned out to be linked with the version of 'SuperSU' that I was using. SuperSU is a great new superuser management tool by the developer Chainfire. At the time of making this video, SuperSU had just replaced 'Superuser' in my ROM of choice (ARHD), but for the purpose of this video I switched back to Superuser, which solved the problem immediately. SuperSU is great and still pretty new (so don't write it off). I'm sure this issue will be resolved soon (if there isn't already a simple solution that I overlooked). I need to look into this some more, but if anyone already has an answer, please let me know. Developer FAQ: A number of common issues are listed on the developer's page here: http://www.sites.google.com/site/funkyfreshapps/ Keeping track of external links is a bit difficult, so if someone notices that a link is broken, please let me know. More info to be added soon...