Turn Your Home Server into a NAS — Access Files from Any Device with Samba

In Part 2, we set up Nextcloud with Docker — your own Google Drive with phone auto-backup and desktop sync. That handles cloud-style access perfectly. But sometimes you just want to drag files into a folder. No browser, no app, no sync client — just open Finder on your Mac (or File Explorer on Windows), and there's your server, looking like any other drive. That's what Samba does. It turns your home server into a NAS (Network Attached Storage) that any device on your network can access natively. What you'll have after this guide: Your server's folders visible in Mac Finder / Windows File Explorer Drag-and-drop file transfer at full network speed Auto-mount on startup so the drive is always there Nextcloud and Samba sharing the same storage — files added via either method are visible in both Remote NAS access via Tailscale (set up in Part 4) Let's set it up. How Samba and Nextcloud work together This is important to understand before we start. Both Nextcloud and Samba will point to the