NI on NAS

Sandro231156

Of course — that’s an excellent idea.

I can prepare a clear, concise, technical email describing exactly what’s going wrong, what we already tried, and why Native Access refuses to accept the NAS location.

Below is a ready-to-send email you can copy/paste into your mail client.

✅ 

Draft Email to Native Instruments Support

Subject: Native Access 3 – Cannot Select Network Drive as Content Location (Z:\ mapped NAS volume not recognized)

Dear Native Instruments Support Team,

I am experiencing a persistent problem with Native Access 3 regarding the Content Location.

No matter what I try, Native Access refuses to accept my mapped network drive (Z:) as a valid content folder, even though it is fully accessible in Windows and all my NI libraries are stored there.

System setup

• Windows 11
• Native Access 3 (latest version)
• NAS storage (\NASmusic\NI_Libraries) with SMB share
• Mapped network drive: Z:\ → \NASmusic\NI_Libraries
• All NI libraries are stored on this NAS
• The NAS folder is fully readable/writable from Windows Explorer

Symptoms

• When selecting “Content Location” in Native Access:
  
  • The Z:\ drive does not appear as a selectable drive.
  • If a symbolic link or folder shortcut is used (e.g. C:\NI_Content → Z:\), Native Access still rejects it.
  • Even though the network drive is correctly mounted, visible, and functioning in Explorer and CMD.
• 
  

Troubleshooting already attempted

1. Deleted and recreated the mapped drive:

net use Z: /delete

net use Z: "\\NASmusic\NI_Libraries" /persistent:yes

1. 
   
2. Verified the connection:

net use

1. → shows Z: correctly mapped to the NAS.
2. Created symbolic links:
   
   • mklink /D C:\NI_Content Z:\NI_Libraries
   • Native Access still refuses the folder.
3. 
   
4. Tried using subst to simulate a local drive letter:
   
   • subst Z: "UNC\NASmusic\NI_Libraries"
   • Still not recognized.
5. 
   
6. Verified permissions (full read/write confirmed).
7. Restarted Native Access, Explorer, and Windows multiple times.

Issue Summary

Native Access appears to reject any folder that is not a true local disk, including:

• SMB network drives (Z:)
• Mapped drives
• UNC paths (\NASmusic\NI_Libraries)
• Local symbolic links pointing to a network drive

Because my library collection is large and located on a NAS, moving everything to my internal SSD is not an option.

Request

Could you please confirm:

1. Is Native Access 3 supposed to support network locations for library storage?
2. If yes, what is the correct procedure to make a mapped NAS drive selectable in Native Access?
3. If no, is there any workaround (registry key, configuration file, advanced setting) that allows enabling support for SMB storage?

I would be very grateful for your guidance, as I cannot relocate hundreds of gigabytes of library content to internal storage.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Kind regards,

Sandro

Jeremy_NI

@Sandro231156 Looks like copying/pasting the email to the forum post didn't go so well.

Please note that NAS drives are not recommended, they shoulmd be used only for the libraries backup, as mentioned in this article: Notes on Network Drives and Disk Formats