Disapointed with FreeNAS

[rvaneynd]

Probably I will get slaughtered for this, but I have been a bit disapointed with FreeNAS.

Why, 3 main reasons:
1) You need to know Linux to do a lot of stuff.
2) I want to backup all my data on FreeNAS to a NTFS USB drive and I only found Shell linux commands to do this.
3) Not able to join to an Active Directory domain if the domain server resides on a different subnet as where the FreeNAS box resides (btw. I was able to do this with an earlier version, prior to 9.3).

At the moment I am backing up all my data to a NTFS USB drive inorder to rebuild my FreeNAS box back in to a Windows box. If somebody can provide me with simple solutions to do the above, I might change my mind and stay with FreeNAS.

 

[jgreco]

1) I have no idea why you'd need to know any Linux, since Linux has nothing to do with FreeNAS.

2) That's correct. This isn't a normal or expected thing, and there's no practical way to develop and test features for every conceivable thing that a user might want to do. That's the purpose of allowing CLI access.

3) Unknown to me. Please feel free to file a bug report.

 

[rvaneynd]

Jgreco,

Thanks for the quick response:

1) All possible fixes for either trying to fix the join to domain or to backup to a NTFS USB drive requires the use of the shell (which is FreeBSD aka Linux).
2) I had to use the shell with these commands to mount a writeable NTFS USB drive:

1. xxxx # kldload fuse
2. xxxx # mkdir /var/NTFS
3. xxxx # ntfs-3g /dev/<your NTFS drive's daXpY> /var/NTFS

And then use the CP -R - v command to copy the data from the FreeNAS volumes to my NTFS USB drive.
​

3) This has been reported as a bug before (not having it on a different subnet) and mentioned as fixed. That said, it worked in previous versions prior to 9.3.

rvaneynd

 

[jgreco]

Jgreco,

Thanks for the quick response:

1) All possible fixes for either trying to fix the join to domain or to backup to a NTFS USB drive requires the use of the shell (which is FreeBSD aka Linux).

FreeBSD is a lineal descendant of 4.3BSD Reno, the Berkeley derivative version of UNIX.

Linux is a project originally created by Linus Torvalds, and traces no lineage to UNIX. There are a number of UNIX-like operating systems out there which were created independently of the original UNIX.

Both Linux and Minix were attempts to create a UNIX-like environment on the IBM PC, more or less from the ground up. This does not mean that "FreeBSD" is "aka Linux", any more than it makes a Toyota Highlander "aka Ford Escape". The fact that they're both four wheeled SUV's does not make them equivalent.

Your NAS is expected to be able to store and retrieve files over the network. You are expected to use a client to manage and manipulate files on the NAS. If you do not want to hook up a client PC to manage the files on the NAS, you then get to deal with the tools that are available directly on the NAS.

 

[rvaneynd]

jgreco,

Thank you and sorry. I know the history and over simplified the connection with Linux. :-S

I can do all the work over the network but wanted to perform a local copy from NAS to direct connected USB to bypass network throughput restrictions and use only local resources. I want to do this due to the amount of data (still small to other NAS users) but I have approx. 1Tb of Data that I want to move to USB drive.

 

[Ericloewe]

What's wrong with using ZFS on the drive? You could even replicate the snapshots for the datasets you want to the external drive.

Obviously, warnings about USB being somewhat unreliable apply, but the same is true for any OS. Should be ok as a means of copying data over for a backup, though.

 

[rvaneynd]

Ericloewe,

I want to be able to use the USB drive with Windows Computers and am not aware that they can read ZFS file systems.

 

[danb35]

So you're disappointed that you were able to do something that FreeNAS was never intended to do, and that you had no reason to expect it would be able to do, all because you had to learn to use the shell to do it? Sure, you may have valid reasons for wanting to do that, but that doesn't give you any reason to expect that you'd be able to do it from the GUI.

 

[depasseg]

1. I'm guessing you are referring to a command line vs the GUI. And it looks like you are doing that because you are trying to do something that FreeNAS doesn't provide - namely support NTFS.

2. This is the like complaining about Windows for not supporting ZFS (nor UFS, ext2/3/4/99, anything except FAT and NFTS). Except in this case, there is at least a way to mount NTFS.

3. Are you sure you have packets routing back and forth between the two machines on the different subnets? And DNS, etc? Seems strange.

 

[rvaneynd]

depasseg,

1) It would great if FreeNAS was able to support NTFS, might increase market especially with the ability to dock NTFS USB drives to offload data for offline use or backup. In case of.

2) Agree.

3) No change to network only upgraded to 9.3 and it stopped working. Routing tables where all correct. No problem accessing the domain controller from any other device of the same subnet as FreeNAS. Also able to join Windows PC's to domain using the Domain Controller.

 

[anodos]

There's a windows tool called 'robocopy' that can help with doing backups of cifs shares to an NTFS formatted USB drive. You just connect the drives to a windows client and run the tool with the correct parameters.

Unfortunately, it's a CLI only tool so you'll need to use the 'Windows aka Linux' CLI (either cmd or power shell).

 

[rvaneynd]

anados,

I am a user of robocopy on Windows and agree it is a CLI tool like what I am currently using on my FreeNAS box to copy the files to a NTFS USB drive.