UNC Path Vs. Mapped Drive - Techwalla

Get the latest news and alerts! Later Notify

1. Tech Support
2. Reviews

UNC Path Vs. Mapped Drive By G.S. Jackson Techwalla may earn compensation through affiliate links in this story. Learn more about our affiliate and product review process here.

Users create local area networks between Windows and Linux computers to share files and information easily, without having to transfer the files manually from computer to computer. By using shared folders, a computer allows access to directories to others on the network so that they might read or modify files on that computer. In order to access these files, two common methods exist: Mapping the network directory to a local drive name, or accessing that directory with a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path.

Advertisement

UNC Paths

Video of the Day

The Uniform Naming Convention (UNC) Path defines the location of a resource on a network. Working on a network level, rather than an operating system level, the UNC exists to have a global standard for computers on a network to communicate with each other. The UNC designation is specific, and applies to all operating systems, even though particular operating systems have their own network mapping protocols.

Advertisement

We Recommend

Tech Support How to Change a Password to a Mapped Drive By Nicholas Smith Tech Support How to Change Permissions on an External Hard Drive for a Mac By Ashley Donohoe Tech Support How to Find Out the IP Address of a Network Drive By Chris Shore

Video of the Day

Mapped Drives

Mapped drives, however, are specific to certain computers. Windows mapped drives represent shared drives on the network, but map them to internal Windows drives denoted by a letter or directory name. This method offers users an easier way to connect to shared drives, because the system will remember the mapping and load it for the user. Users can change mapped drives, where UNC paths usually do not. In fact, users are in control of the mapping designations, meaning mapped drives can change day to day and in unknown ways.

Advertisement

Mapped Drive Locality Versus UNC Path Regularity

System administrators would often like to implement UC paths throughout a network because of these reasons. Users modifying mapped drives can cause problems in data flow throughout a network. Users may not know what drive maps to what shared resource. Furthermore, a resource that becomes unavailable can cause a computer to hang should a user map a drive to it. The drive seeks a resource that may have moved, and thus the computer spends time searching for it without any idea as to where to look.

Advertisement

We Recommend

Tech Support How to Change a Password to a Mapped Drive By Nicholas Smith Tech Support How to Change Permissions on an External Hard Drive for a Mac By Ashley Donohoe Tech Support How to Find Out the IP Address of a Network Drive By Chris Shore

Underlying Network

A bigger problem between UNC and Mapping drives is that mapped drives do not reflect the underlying network structure. An administrator can change the entire layout of a network, or the layout might be modified due to updates or repairs so as to make mapped drives impossible to maintain. The alternative to mapped drives is to maintain a list of computers on the network, and teach users how to use UNC. For example, a user with a list of resources on the network can use the UNC path of a network, such as "\computer1\shared_folder" rather than mapping the drive. This way, the user always accesses the correct resource.

Advertisement

Advertisement

references

• Indiana University: What is UNC?
• Windows Networking: Avoiding Mapped Drives; Tulloch, Matt; 2005
• CaseWare: Mapped Dries Vs. UNC Paths

Techwalla may earn compensation through affiliate links in this story. Learn more about our affiliate and product review process here.

People are Reading

1

How to Connect to a Remote Computer Using an IP

2

How to View Hidden Partitions on a Flash Drive

3

How to Add a Network Drive

You May Also Like

1

How to Map a Hard Drive

2

How to Change the CMD Line Drive

3

How to Find My C Drive