External drive on the go?

[urobe]

Hey there,

currently I'm building my first freeNAS system. As this is changing a lot of our current structure, I'm starting to question a couple of other things.

So far we had an external USB drive that allowed carrying larger amount of Data fairly easily outside of our network. However, in the future I wouldn't mind, if this external USB drive would also feature some basic sharing functions via lan.

Here's what I'd like:

- Sharing via LAN
- being able to connect the drive to a computer via USB (so it acts as a "normal" external HDD)

What I don't need is any data security (meaning single drive, no ECC RAM).
What I'd want is a small enclosure with a single 3,5 HDD and a mini/nano itx board.

As far as I understand, freeNAS can't be connected to a computer via USB directly? (I think an older version, 7?, was able to)

Basically I'd like another freeNAS device, and I was also considering four 2.5" HDDs in a 5 1/4" slot (so ZFS would work), but not being able to directly hook it up to a computer is a bit of a downside.

Is there any other OS you can recommend that can act as a NAS as well as an external USB drive?

Any advice, help or hint is greatly appreciated!
-Urobe

 

[m0nkey_]

Sounds like FreeNAS is not what you want or need. WD has a 'wireless' hard drive which will probably satisfy your requirements.

https://www.wdc.com/products/portable-storage/my-passport-wireless.html

 

[tvsjr]

Yep, your use cases are orthogonal. Either build a NAS, or build/buy an external drive (or drive array).

 

[urobe]

Thanks for the input.