I don't understand ;(

[Rob1]

Hi to all,​

​

Well afther some problems my FreeNAS is working. According to an instruction video, I (new to all of this) have to use the USF file system. In the NAS I have 2 1Tb drives and a small one to play.​

My idea is to have al my foto's on one of the 1Tb drive and an exact copy on the other 1Tb drive.​

But what I want seems not possible for I think 2 reasons.​

​

1) in the BIOS the motherboard is not set to RAID 1​

2) for as far as I understand I need the ZFS file system.​

​

If I set RAID1 in the BIOS, do I lose my foto's? I mean can I still see it?​

And because I don't have the ZFS file system can I use some way to copy (and keep it up to date) to the other drive?​

​

And I there is a way, is there somebody that can explane it to me in a simple way (I'm not IT guy)?​

On the net I can't find what I'm looking for, al I see has to do with the ZFS and if not then it's using a windows PC to do the job.​

​

I have: motherbourd Asus P5N-MX, 3Gb memory, 2 x 1Tb drives SATA, 1 x 160Gb drive IDE and the system is on a 40Gb drive IDE. Procesor is P4 3,2GHz​

​

Regards,​

Rob.​

 

[gpsguy]

The recommendation to use UFS vs ZFS is largely determined (in your case), by the amount of RAM you have. ZFS on FreeNAS generally needs a minimum of 8Gb of RAM. With 3Gb, UFS is a better choice.

That being said, don't set your BIOS to RAID. It's not hardware RAID - it's commonly known as "fake RAID".

When you setup FreeNAS, did you configure a gmirror with the 2 - 1Tb drives? If so, as you copy the files to your server, they will be placed on both drives automatically, transparent to you.

That being said, RAID (whether ZFS or UFS) isn't a substitute for backups. Keep backups of anything you can't afford to lose, on another hard drive, dvd, etc.

 

[Rob1]

GPSGUY, thanks for explaining.

Gmirror..... That is not configured on the FreeNAS. I just burned the ISO to a cdrom and let the machine do the rest. On internet I understud that I didn't have to do anything, I just needed to pay atention to the IP adres it would give me. That's just what I did. Then with an instruction video I installed first 1 drive and later drive 2.

Never seen anything about gmirror. Is there a way to do that aftherwards?

 

[pirateghost]

You don't setup a mirror during install of FreeNAS. You would have to set it up during the configuration of your storage drive. If you didn't, then the only way to get it set up is to back all your files up and start over on the drive configuration. You don't have to reinstall FreeNAS but you will want to back up all your files before doing anything

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

 

[gpsguy]

@Rob1, since we don't know what instruction video's you might be watching, let's start by ensuring that you are in the right place. Are you running FreeNAS 8.x or 9.x? Some of the video's on the 'net are for 0.7, which is a different project and not supported here.

Before you go any further, I'd suggest reading the official FreeNAS documentation.

 

[Rob1]

I am running FreeNAS 9.1.1. The video is one that is on FreeNAS site and is don by Ile th computer guy.

 

[dlavigne]

URL to the video?

 

[Yatti420]

Hmmm.. You want freenas handling all drives/software raid.. I would probably rsync from 1 drive to the other.. Or simply create a mirror.. Not sure about the better choice here..

 

[Rob1]

http://www.freenas.org/about/videos.html Episode #338 Introduction to FreeNAS

 

[Yatti420]

Ok.. Why did you put the operating system on an IDE drive? I'm pretty sure this isn't recommended course of action for installation.. Definitely use UFS.. Your system wont handle ZFS with such little ram..Do you not have any 4GB USB drives laying around for the Freenas operating system install?

As I said previously.. Rsync will do what you want.. Same with a copy command.. So will a UFS mirror.. I'm not sure what is a better choice for data redundancy..

Instead of 2 volumes (1 volume/1 tb disk) where you would rsync.. Why not setup a mirror (once you have freenas 9.1.1 installed and running)..

I can not stress/recommend enough reading the documentation.. I've been using Freenas (different versions) for a few years and it takes along time and alot of reading to understand what is going on etc.. http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Main_Page

Even now I still don't really have a clue.. Coming from windows is like a slap in the face .. ZFS is a beast.. UFS is familiar but using it you lose all the nice ZFS features.. Freenas 9 GUI feels crippled running UFS..

 

[Rob1]

@Yatti, I printed en read the book FreeNAS 9.1.1 users guide. Great sugestion! Thanks. Then I started al over again with installing the freeNAS it selfs. This time with a UBS stick. Worked fine, just when I made a reboot, the system gave me the message that there is no boot disk. I check and dubble check the settings in the BIOS. So I stared again, this time again with a IDE drive, and installed everything according the guide book. Al working fine! When I reboot, it realy reboots. And my question , 'how to make a back up' is oke too. Only thing now is that I can only access it on the internal IP 192.168.178.27 when I try to access the NAS over the internet with I can't reach it. Befor I stared al above I was able to acces the GUI over the internet too. Any sugestion?

 

[gpsguy]

Given the age of your equipment and the fact that you were running the OS off a 40Gb IDE drive, I figured you were using it, because a USB stick wouldn't work for you. I'd continue to run it from the IDE drive. A lot of FreeNAS user's will load it on a 500Gb hard drive and then find out they can't use the OS drive for disk storage.

If you haven't set a static IP address on your server, you'll want to do that. To make it visable from the internet, you'll need to use port forwarding in your router, to point incoming traffic to your server.

That being said, allowing port 80 (access to GUI) from the Internet is a bad idea. I'd look at implementing a VPN solution to securely access your network.

 

[Yatti420]

I like to clean (usually quick format) format the USB before installs to avoid issues.. With sketchy USB sticks sometimes it just won't work right..

Are you 100% sure the USB won't work? Hitting F8 or F12 at boot up should get a popup menu with boot selections.. Have USB in the computer when the power cycles.. It should be in the BIOS boot options somewhere.. If you have different USB boot options you might have to play around... Try USB-HDD and then go to your HDD boot options and change from your IDE to your USB.. See this video should be similiar.. Phoenix AwardBIOS >> USB (sorry it's not english)

Freenas also doesn't have a web server built in so.. You might be able to point the WebGUI to the web but depends what you want access to.. Once FreeNAS is up and running you really don't need the GUI for much unless your dealing with plugins/jail/ changing settings etc.. Get as much ram in it as possible.. 3/4GB max isn't alot for FreeNAS..

 

[Rob1]

Yatti, I have it running for now with a HDD. When I have more time a go and test it again with a USB. It's not that it's not working with an USB, but I have to use F8 to have it boot. That is not a big problem, just when here is a power failur of some kind. Then it doens't restart.

So for now A HDD. When I get some more experians with it all i can go and play again.

 

[Yatti420]

If it works via F8 then simply it's just changing the boot order (in BIOS settings) to ensure the USB boots.. My asus board took awhile to get use to.. But i'm a master at it now.. See the phoenix award bios video above..

Make sure you have a good USB.. There are a few tools to check blocks/sectors on a USB aswell.. This might not be a bad idea to place in freenas documentation.. Not just use a known good USB..

Have fun!..

 

[gpsguy]

@Rob1 I'd you are having problems with power failures you should definitely protect your server with a UPS,


Sent from my phone

 

[Yatti420]

OP is referring to when he reboots his system he must manually configure USB boot versus having the BIOS settings correct...

That being said it's always wise to protect investments with a UPS.. I'm getting one soon!..

 

[gpsguy]

Yatti - I was replying to this comment.

That is not a big problem, just when here is a power failur of some kind.