Hi, I'm new to FreeNAS (and Linux). After fumbling around, it's currently running smoothly as an office file server. But, I'm worried about a few things...
First, the scenario:
FreeNAS 8.0.4 p3 x64
500GB HDDx1, 2GB RAM
Boots off a 16GB flash drive
While setting it up, I noticed that it will only let you mount a WHOLE drive as a volume, and erases the entire volume in the process. So adding a volume means formatting the whole drive. Am I correct?
In addition, if there's a folder on that volume and you set it up afterwards as a dataset, it also erases that entire folder (but this is not a big problem).
Finally, if I pull off that USB drive for some temporary purposes, the system will fail after a while (some cache-related stuff, I think), so that means the system reads and writes to that stick from time to time, and it always has to be there as long as the server is running.
So now here's the major question: What if that boot drive fails (e.g. something falls on it and breaks it) and I need to reinstall? How do I re-add my existing volumes without formatting it? If I can't do that, then is there a way I can access my data when FreeNAS won't boot?
Or, is it possible to export the FreeNAS settings (users, shares, etc) into another flash drive via command line and import it back after a fresh reinstall? I was hoping this will allow me to restore all my shares without the risk of losing data.
Thanks for your help!
First, the scenario:
FreeNAS 8.0.4 p3 x64
500GB HDDx1, 2GB RAM
Boots off a 16GB flash drive
While setting it up, I noticed that it will only let you mount a WHOLE drive as a volume, and erases the entire volume in the process. So adding a volume means formatting the whole drive. Am I correct?
In addition, if there's a folder on that volume and you set it up afterwards as a dataset, it also erases that entire folder (but this is not a big problem).
Finally, if I pull off that USB drive for some temporary purposes, the system will fail after a while (some cache-related stuff, I think), so that means the system reads and writes to that stick from time to time, and it always has to be there as long as the server is running.
So now here's the major question: What if that boot drive fails (e.g. something falls on it and breaks it) and I need to reinstall? How do I re-add my existing volumes without formatting it? If I can't do that, then is there a way I can access my data when FreeNAS won't boot?
Or, is it possible to export the FreeNAS settings (users, shares, etc) into another flash drive via command line and import it back after a fresh reinstall? I was hoping this will allow me to restore all my shares without the risk of losing data.
Thanks for your help!
