Trying to understand File Sharing (need to share an external drive)

Hello,
I feel a bit dumb, but after years of getting along without really understanding, I feel I need to get to the basics of file sharing and permissions now.
We have a small office, and use a MacMini (10.6.4 Client) to serve files. Those files are in a folder called 'data' on an external drive.
The Mini has two users set up, 'admin' and 'user'. I want everyone to log in via AFP as 'user' to access the 'data' folder.
Until now our setup was a 10.4 machine, with the third-party application Sharepoints by Hornware managing the sharing. Now with 10.6 I know I should be able to do without that.
I've removed all user's Public folders from the System Preferences/Sharing pane, and added the 'data' folder. I've added the 'user' user to it, and have given it read/write access. Also, I've done the same for the 'admin' user.
Now I'm unsure if I need to change permissions to the 300GB worth of files on that external drive. (that's question #1.)
If I look at those files from a client machine, logged in as 'user', Finder tells me they belong to 'unknown'.
Question #2: If I understand correctly, the settings on the server's Sharing preferences pane only apply for ACCESS to the shared folder (i.e. they make it possible to log in via AFP). These settings don't do anything to ownership and permissions on the shared files, right? (not sure here!)
Grateful if anybody can shed light on this!

Jens Grotzscherst wrote:
Now I'm unsure if I need to change permissions to the 300GB worth of files on that external drive. (that's question #1.)
If you want to allow anyone accessing as "user" to be able to read or write all files on that volume, you could do that. You should also be able to set the volume attribute to ignore ownership:
http://www.peachpit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=mac&seqNum=256
If I look at those files from a client machine, logged in as 'user', Finder tells me they belong to 'unknown'.
I imagine that they're owned by a user with a user ID that's not present on that machine.
Question #2: If I understand correctly, the settings on the server's Sharing preferences pane only apply for ACCESS to the shared folder (i.e. they make it possible to log in via AFP).
If that were the case, there would be no need for the "Read & Write" / "Read Only" setting in the Sharing panel.

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I've tried to understand this whole concept. Official Apple docs and manuals (as well as online tutorials -- they just copy&paste Apple docs) were completely useless. It took me an hour to finally figure it out on my own.
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You might need to click on the lock icon at the bottom and enter admin password to make it selectable;
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I need it in an external drive?
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Im using Windowns XP, someone must have an easy solution, surlyey just because you buy an iphone doesnt mean you have to have a certain size computer!!
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2013-01-19 23:14:03 +0000: Disk Utility started.
2013-01-19 23:17:26 +0000: Preparing to erase : “disk2s10”
2013-01-19 23:17:26 +0000:           Partition Scheme: Apple Partition Map
2013-01-19 23:17:26 +0000:           1 volume will be erased
2013-01-19 23:17:26 +0000:                     Name       : “disk2s10”
2013-01-19 23:17:26 +0000:                     Size       : 465.6 GB
2013-01-19 23:17:26 +0000:                     Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2013-01-19 23:17:26 +0000: newfs_hfs: WARNING: wrapper option ignored since volume size > 256GB
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2013-01-19 23:19:49 +0000: Mounting disk.
2013-01-19 23:20:50 +0000: Could not mount disk2s10 with name disk2s10 after erase
2013-01-19 23:20:50 +0000: Erase complete.
2013-01-19 23:20:50 +0000:
2013-01-19 23:24:17 +0000: Preparing to partition disk: “ST950032 5AS Media”
2013-01-19 23:24:17 +0000:           Partition Scheme: Apple Partition Map
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2013-01-19 23:24:17 +0000:
2013-01-19 23:24:17 +0000:           Partition 1
2013-01-19 23:24:17 +0000:                     Name       : “Boot”
2013-01-19 23:24:17 +0000:                     Size       : 15 GB
2013-01-19 23:24:17 +0000:                     Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2013-01-19 23:24:17 +0000:
2013-01-19 23:24:17 +0000:           Partition 2
2013-01-19 23:24:17 +0000:                     Name       : “Repository”
2013-01-19 23:24:17 +0000:                     Size       : 450.8 GB
2013-01-19 23:24:17 +0000:                     Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2013-01-19 23:24:17 +0000:
2013-01-19 23:24:17 +0000: Creating partition map.
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2013-01-19 23:26:31 +0000: Partition failed for disk disk2s5 File system formatter failed.
2013-01-19 23:26:32 +0000: Formatting disk2s3 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name Boot.
2013-01-19 23:27:22 +0000: Partition failed for disk (null) File system formatter failed.
2013-01-19 23:27:22 +0000: Partition failed for disk (null) File system formatter failed.
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2013-01-19 23:27:22 +0000:
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2013-01-19 23:28:13 +0000: Unmount of “disk2” failed

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2013-01-20 20:55:33 +0000: Preparing to erase : “Back-up”
2013-01-20 20:55:33 +0000:           Partition Scheme: Apple Partition Map
2013-01-20 20:55:33 +0000:           1 volume will be created
2013-01-20 20:55:33 +0000:                     Name       : “Back-up”
2013-01-20 20:55:33 +0000:                     Size       : 465.8 GB
2013-01-20 20:55:33 +0000:                     Filesystem : Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
2013-01-20 20:55:33 +0000: Creating partition map.
2013-01-20 20:55:36 +0000: Formatting disk2s3 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name Back-up.
2013-01-20 20:59:19 +0000: Erase complete.
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Jens Grotzscherst wrote:
Now I'm unsure if I need to change permissions to the 300GB worth of files on that external drive. (that's question #1.)
If you want to allow anyone accessing as "user" to be able to read or write all files on that volume, you could do that. You should also be able to set the volume attribute to ignore ownership:
http://www.peachpit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=mac&seqNum=256
If I look at those files from a client machine, logged in as 'user', Finder tells me they belong to 'unknown'.
I imagine that they're owned by a user with a user ID that's not present on that machine.
Question #2: If I understand correctly, the settings on the server's Sharing preferences pane only apply for ACCESS to the shared folder (i.e. they make it possible to log in via AFP).
If that were the case, there would be no need for the "Read & Write" / "Read Only" setting in the Sharing panel.

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in my Mac Pro running 10.5.6 I have a second drive that I recently installed, This drive has two folders in it that i wish to share. So I did the following steps:
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Whenever i edit these permissions or attempt to add another user everything seems to of gone fine, but when i close System Preferences and reload it i get the following
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I've looked at editting the smb.conf file in /etc/smb.conf but i don't want to do that unless necessary. Also it doesn't appear that any of the other settings are saved here any information would be appreciated.
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Trying to understand File Sharing (need to share an external drive)

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