# How do I share my hard drive?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-share-my-hard-drive/110409
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 23, 2002, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-share-my-hard-drive/110409 "2002-05-23T00:55:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Chekmate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chekmate)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2002, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-share-my-hard-drive/110409/1 "2002-05-23T00:55:43Z")
I am trying to let someone download some 200 megs of files from my computer over the internet. Is there any way that I can just let her download them directly from my computer, without having to upload them all to a seperate, outside server?
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### Author:  [@Ell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ell)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2002, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-share-my-hard-drive/110409/2 "2002-05-23T01:08:19Z")
Get yourself a FTP daemon.
Try [Tucows](http://www.tucows.com/ftpserver95.html)
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### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2002, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-share-my-hard-drive/110409/3 "2002-05-23T01:46:48Z")
zip them into a single file then use aim or other program to send a file.
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### Author:  [@mblackwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mblackwell)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2002, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-share-my-hard-drive/110409/4 "2002-05-23T01:54:32Z")
Any free FTP server program will do. Or you could share it on a peer to peer service under a name that only the other person will search for.
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### Author:  [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2002, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-share-my-hard-drive/110409/5 "2002-05-23T15:03:18Z")
You can also use a file sharing internet site, they let you determine who can get your files. But I don’t
think they allow 200 megs for free. Its possible for the person to call your computer directly & download,
we used to do that with our BBS.
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### Author:  [@tourbot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tourbot)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2002, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-share-my-hard-drive/110409/6 "2002-05-23T17:53:03Z")
You will only be able to use your PC as an FTP server if you have a publicly available IP address. How does your PC connect to the internet?
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### Author:  [@Chekmate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chekmate)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2002, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-share-my-hard-drive/110409/7 "2002-05-23T19:47:17Z")
Through a LAN at college, but in about 3 weeks, I will be moving home, and will have a cable connection open.
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### Author:  [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2002, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-share-my-hard-drive/110409/8 "2002-05-23T22:42:42Z")
If you are at a college you could just put them on a CD & mail them?
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### Author:  [@tourbot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tourbot)
#### Post date: [May 23, 2002, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-share-my-hard-drive/110409/9 "2002-05-23T23:04:49Z")
Your LAN at college most likely does not give you a publicly available IP address.
Through a cable modem, the setup is possible. However, most cable providers block incoming traffic to standard http and ftp ports. You will just have to find a port that is open and run your services through that.
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### Author:  [@DarrenS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarrenS)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2002, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-share-my-hard-drive/110409/10 "2002-05-24T00:13:50Z")
Another possibility would be to turn the whole thing around: have your _friend_ set up an FTP site on his machine, then upload the files to his machine using an FTP client on your machine. (Lots of people seem to like CuteFTP and WS\_FTP; if there aren’t too many files you can even use the Windows command line FTP program).
Whatever your setup, you should have some way of connecting to FTP site from your machine, even if through a proxy.