I installed Samba to my Ubuntu Server (which is an old ThinkPad laptop that has been gathering dust in my closet for ages):

sudo apt-get install samba

I have three 3-TB HDDs that I planned to use as my main server storage; one main server, and the other two for backup. All of these HDDs are in ext4 format.

Then I created a new directory under /media where I will mount my main server storage:

mkdir /media/myserver

Then I edited the samba config file /etc/samba/smb.conf. I just scrolled to the very bottom and added these lines (after [print$] section):

[MYSERVER]
    path = /media/myserver
    browsable = yes
    writable = yes
    guest ok = yes
    read only = no

Then I tested the config file for syntax errors using the command:

testparm

Before I added the mount entry for my server to /etc/fstab, I took note of my HDD’s UUID from the following command:

sudo blkid

in which the output looked something like

/dev/sdb1: UUID="996a1b79-bf22-49fd-a3d1-33eab2708cfb" TYPE="ext4"

Then I edited /etc/fstab and added the line below:

UUID=996a1b79-bf22-49fd-a3d1-33eab2708cfb /media/myserver ext4 defaults 0 0

Lastly, I then rebooted my server.

Accessing my file server from Windows

To access my server, I opened File Explorer and browsed to \\my_server_ip\myserver.

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