The server administrators need to define who the users are, which set of files and folders the users can access, and access permissions. The benefits of a file server as a company-wide collaboration platform is enormous. Still, the networking effect immediately enables connected and authorized client agents for basic operations such as listing files and folders, reading and writing files, and most importantly, locking files so to facilitate group collaboration.
Granted, accessing files over a network is not as fast as reading or writing files from a local C drive. A file server allows a connected client device to extend its local file system (such as those on a C Drive or a D drive) to include a network file system. As a software component, a file server is part of an operating system such as the Windows operating system.
