How to Access USB Hard Drives Safely via a Network


USB storage drives are very practical as you can simply attach them and there’s additional storage space for your data. However, network access to shared directories on a USB drive does not always work. If multiple USB hard drives are attached to one computer, the Windows server service SRV frequently refuses access to shared folders and files with the message “Access to resources not possible. Sufficient server memory not available”.

Insufficient memory set through a parameter called “IRPStackSize” in the “lanmanserver” system service responsible for the sharing is at fault. Simply set a larger value using the registry. For this,

  • First start the Registry Editor and navigate to the key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters”.
  • If this is not available, create the “IRPStackSize” entry through “Edit > New > DWORD value”.
  • Double-click the new entry and enter the hexadecimal value “32” in the following dialog. It corresponds to the decimal number 50. You can thus increase the reserve for additional network shares.
  • The original value of “0x4” is depending on the hardware configuration of the computer is possibly not high enough, so that the SRV service cannot properly manage the shared directories on some of the physical drives.

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