Booting freeNAS from USB on a Mac...

[prismus]

I have nothing against trying new things; however it is best to try to experiment in a "controlled environment".

So for sake of argument, lets say you are able to get FreeNas to boot from the USB fine and it even sees all the hardware.

• Be careful that you don't accidentally select the OSX Drive to add to a vDev otherwise that drive is now toast (for the most part)

• If you are talking about USB attached storage, then that is most definitely not a good idea
• External drives for the most part is not a good idea unless they are via proper methods (Never a USB Hub.. ;) )
  
• If you get this working, then decide that you need to boot up OSX guess what happens to that file share that everyone is using?
  • Guess they will have to wait until you reboot back into FreeNas
  • I have idea what OSX may/will do to either the USB or the external drive when it is up and running; hopefully nothing that would change/modify either but who knows?

Since I don't own a MAC I can only suggest that if you are experimenting then perhaps you could see if there is a way to actually remove/replace the existing hard drive (shelving the current one to prevent data loss). From my understanding it this system was just gathering dust anyways.

All that being said, I would say that this should be considered as an experiment at best and never considered a "Production" worthy endeavor. People tend to get upset when their data goes bye-bye. :)

Extremely helpful, thank you for that!

 

[gpsguy]

I don't own a Mac either, but one thing you might try would be install FreeNAS 9.2.1.9 instead.


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[danb35]

I must have missed the posts saying that this is a fine idea. Please point them out to me.

 

[pirateghost]

Yes I did try it and failed and so apologies for not having commented on this.
And by "we're telling you" you mean yourself and the grand inquisitor so please dont make it sound like everyone in this thread is of the same opinion as you!

Everyone in this thread DOES agree that this is a really bad idea....it's only you who doesn't.

 

[INCSlayer]

I just found this thread and after reading it i fully agree with @pirateghost and @danb35

when people with experience are telling you something is a bad idea you should listen to them

 

[adrianwi]

I've read it again and I'm still not sure what there OP is actually trying to achieve. Running FreeNAS on a Mac, or running FreeNAS AND OSX on a Mac.?

If it's just 'gathering dust' you probably stand a better chance 'repurposing it' to just running FreeNAS, which I'm sure you'll be able to configure eventually using some kind of boot manager. Still don't understand why as what storage are you going to attach?

Trying to keep it as a viable OSX machine at the same time seems even less logical, with a very good chance of loosing both.

I'll never understand why people come onto internet forums asking for advice, only to take the hump when the advice given isn't what they wanted to hear. If you're not going to listen, why ask in the first place?

Feel free to take offence again if any of that comes across as condescending ;)

 

[jgreco]

I'll never understand why people come onto internet forums asking for advice, only to take the hump when the advice given isn't what they wanted to hear. If you're not going to listen, why ask in the first place?

Moderator note: This thread is now closed. This seems like the best meta-summary of the thread to date.

 

[cyberjock]

Just some words of warning about using Macs with FreeNAS. I know someone that did it. It "worked" as in "yes, it booted" but it was very unstable. It crashed a lot, he had lots of problems (including losing data) and so I would never recommend this configuration, even for learning. You can't learn on a system that is unstable with the OS.

So if you're looking to run a Mac with FreeNAS, just don't. There's no value that you could ever have with doing it.