We have 50 computers that students share. Is there an easy way to have student folders on a single drive on the network where each student has a password? Students need to be able to go to any computer and access their password-protected directory.
All the computers are Windows 8, but I'd very much prefer not to have to use a Windows Server.
Right now we connect a USB drive to our router. Works great except the directories are not password-protected. We don't want students deleting other students' work.
I'm happy to use a cloud storage mechanism for this too.
Since you'd prefer not to use Windows Server you might consider using Samba. It communicates as a Windows Server computer would, using the Microsoft Server Message Block (SMB) file sharing protocol (which is likely what your router is doing). You can easily configure it to require authentication. It can even emulate a Windows Domain Controller if you'd like to use functionality in Windows to allow users' settings to follow them between computers ("Roaming User Profiles") and such.