Help For A n00b! Help With Existing NAS & Initial Set Up

[LGShepherd]

Hi FreeNAS!!

I apologise if the answers are easy to find within the forums, but I've looked and can't find what I need.

I have just taken delivery of a HP Proliant Microserver N54L and I am looking for some help and advice.

I currently have a D-Link DNS320 with 2x2TB hard drives in a RAID1 format.

I purchased the Proliant due to £100 cash back and the ability to create a 4+ bay NAS, but I think I might have bitten off a little bit more than I can chew.

I have some questions I hope you can answer...
1) When I insert my USB stick I would expect the FreeNAS software to boot or am I expecting something too early? I have seen videos about going into the BIOS? I am guessing that I need to go there and boot up the Microserver. Once it has booted can I obtain the IP from the boot up screen (using a second monitor) and then enter that IP into a browser on my iMac to do all the setting up I need?

2) I will want to move my existing hard drives into the Proliant, but will I lose data? I have been reading about RAIDZ1 which seems like it is a great way to store my data, but I am currently on RAID1. I have 2x2TB drives currently, but I do have a spare drive ready for when I upgraded, so I will have 3x2TB drives (2 with data which are a mirror of each other and 1 which is empty).

I have briefly read the auto import pages, but as a n00b it doesn't make sense and I don't want to lose my data by making a n00b mistake without asking the experts.

If I have missed anything then I would be grateful if you could help me.

Thanks
Liam

 

[jgreco]

Before even worrying about your disks, figure out how to make a bootable USB drive key image for FreeNAS, and figure out how to boot from it. The N36L, and presumably the newer N54L, have a variety of USB slots external, plus one internal (making it harder for someone to knock askew).

Once you've done that, you're going to need somewhere to temporarily store your data, if you want to use the drives from your existing NAS. The FreeNAS system probably can't read them, and certainly not convert them.

You can store all your data temporarily on that spare 2GB, or you can bother friends and family to see who has some extra disks you can temporarily borrow.

Then you install disks in the FreeNAS, and copy the data to them.

There are various strategies that you can use to accomplish all these steps. Each has upsides and downsides. I personally prefer to leave the old disks alone for awhile after installing a new NAS, so my solution would be to get that spare disk a shiny new brother, jam both them in the N54L, and go to town that way. Then in a few months when you know you have a handle on it all, you could take the other two drives out of your other NAS and add them to the N54L.

 

[LGShepherd]

Thanks for your reply jgreco.

I have created a bootable USB key drive, but don't have a wired keyboard until tomorrow when I bring one home from work.

I am thinking of taking one of the 2TB drives which are mirrored on RAID1, wiping it and setting it up with the new 2TB drive. I will keep the current data on one of the existing 2TB drives like you mentioned.

Once I have got it booted and set up then I will no doubt be back here with more questions, but I'm looking forward to learning about all of this.

Thanks again!

 

[jgreco]

Whatever you feel comfortable with.

 

[LGShepherd]

I have created 2 USB boot drives (one 5GB and one 8GB) using Terminal on Mac OS X, but it doesn't seem to boot correctly.

I have followed the correct steps to change some information in the BIOS to boot from USB.

WHen I plug in the USB and turn on the Microserver, I will get a POST Prompts page giving me a F10 option for a ROM based boot and a F12 option for a PXE option. I don't press anything and I get the flashing _ in the top left corner.

I can't see what I am doing wrong and I use 2 USB sticks to make sure neither one is causing the issue. The USB sticks are DOS_FAT_32 if that helps.

Cheers

 

[jgreco]

I'd suggest finding a different way to make your USB sticks. Do you have a portable CD drive that you can hook up? Download the FreeNAS ISO and install to the USB that way, for example.

 

[LGShepherd]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

I took your advice and this worked a treat.

The question that I have now is the best way to set up my drives.

As I mentioned above, I have 3x2TB drives and 2x2TB drives are in my current NAS. Would what was mentioned before with setting it up with 2 (1 fresh and 1 formatted from the old NAS) and transferring from the remaining drive be the best option? Getting hold of a spare 2TB external is proving difficult.

What would be the best form of RAID to use? I've read up on each and I can see the pros and cons for each, but I will be adding drives in the future.

Thanks

 

[jgreco]

Okay, so, there's no totally happy solution for you. Were there a way for you to temporarily offload your data somewhere else, you could end up with 4TB of storage (3 x 2TB in RAIDZ1).

You can do the following, and retain redundancy as much as easily possible:

1) Install a single 2TB in the N54L. Make your pool. Learn how FreeNAS works while you're at it. Then copy everything from the D-Link to the FreeNAS. Nothing about any of this should be risky, and gives you an opportunity to get comfortable.

2) Turn off the D-Link. Wait a day, a week, whatever, to get comfortable with FreeNAS.

3) Move the D-Link disks to the N54L.

4) Run a scrub on the N54L's one-disk pool, to verify that everything is readable and okay.

5) Double-verify that all your data was copied to and accessible on the N54L's single disk.

Because the next step destroys your ability to unroll and back out. So by doing step 3 and then making sure you don't physically mess with things like disks after that step, you minimize the likelihood of the single disk failing (and taking your data with it) during the next bits.

6) Make a NEW POOL (do NOT "extend pool") mirroring the two disks from the D-Link. This destroys the data on those disks. You only have a single copy right now, so whatever happens, be careful.

7) Copy data from the one disk pool to the new pool. We can show you how to do that from the command line to make it go much quicker if you want.

8) Modify all your mounts to point to the new pool.

9) Destroy the old one disk pool.