I have a single PC, with plenty of storage over 4 drives (5.5TB).
I want to be able to back up the really important stuff (photos, docs etc) and some way of making these files accessible anywhere (most likely via Android phone, iPad, other PC) and to dump stuff from phone and iPad to 'cloud' storage. I am also keen to see what else it can offer - media streaming etc. I have a Rasperry Pi running Kodi, and wondered if this could be replaced/incorporated.
For this, I started to look into solutions and freenas kept coming up - but I was also aware of the off the shelf boxes that you can plug and play.
I am not afraid of having a go at most things techy, and thought Id give freenas a go.
Now, I know about the recommended hardware etc, but I wanted to dip my toes in without spending a fortune first and see if it would really do what I want.
I picked up a box off eBay, about 4 years old, for what I thought was a good price, if only for the included 4 x 3TB hard drives. It was listed as running freenas.
It arrived, with nothing included, so I dug out an old power lead and an Ethernet cable and connected it to my monitor, kb and mouse and powered up. It ran through a whole load of commands and eventually spat out an IP address. I reconnected my monitor to my PC and typed the IP into a browser - and up popped the GUI......but asking for username and password! After a bit of Googling, I got past that and was in to the GUI.....but noticed the red alert top right......something about one of the drives. After some reading, I decided that this was probably because freenas was running off one of the drives....no CD drive included and there was no USB stick in.
I spent the next couple of days trying to install freenas via a USB.....eventually got 9.3 STABLE to work.....and the red alert disappeared. So, I started by going through the wizard and re-configuring the drives, adding a user and a group. I then tried to set up a Windows share, which appears to have worked.....but not quite. While I can see the share in windows, when I try and put something in it, I get destination access folder denied.
I have read loads of different ways of setting up a share, but none seem to work.......some appear to say that the user needs to match the Windows user you log in to Windows with, others don't mention that. I have no idea if this needs to be synchronised with Active Directory...or if this is a red herring.
I also set up a WebDAV share to try and access the share with my Android phone, but don't appear to be able to access it using any apps on my phone. The main issue I see here is that the guides I have read appear to imply that you create a WebDAV dataset to access via Android....but I want a volume that can be accessed anywhere....by Windows, Android, Apple....not separate storage for separate device.
If I can figure out how to get the basic storage and sharing working, I can then move on to the full potential of freenas, but if I cant get the basics working, I might as well get an off the shelf device!
Right, this is where I'm probably going to get trolled....my hardware. It is a 2011 Armari 4TE (http://armari.com/custom.asp?SysID=1195), which has had freenas installed by the previous owner who said it worked fine. It is definitely not up to the standards of the required hardware as stated by freenas.......it has a low end mini-ITX mobo (Tyan s3115gm2b) with onboard Intel Atom CPU and 2GB of RAM limit.
However, I don't think that the hardware is causing the issues in what I am trying to do, and if I can get it to work, I am more than willing to invest in a suitable mobo and RAM.
So, my questions are....
1. Does freenas suit my requirements?
2. Is it really that hard to configure storage that can be configured as 'cloud' type storage that can be accessed and written to by any number of different device types. Understand that to answer this question, I will probs have to give a load more detail as to what I have already done and what issues I am encountering.
Cheers (in advance and anticipation of any help).
I want to be able to back up the really important stuff (photos, docs etc) and some way of making these files accessible anywhere (most likely via Android phone, iPad, other PC) and to dump stuff from phone and iPad to 'cloud' storage. I am also keen to see what else it can offer - media streaming etc. I have a Rasperry Pi running Kodi, and wondered if this could be replaced/incorporated.
For this, I started to look into solutions and freenas kept coming up - but I was also aware of the off the shelf boxes that you can plug and play.
I am not afraid of having a go at most things techy, and thought Id give freenas a go.
Now, I know about the recommended hardware etc, but I wanted to dip my toes in without spending a fortune first and see if it would really do what I want.
I picked up a box off eBay, about 4 years old, for what I thought was a good price, if only for the included 4 x 3TB hard drives. It was listed as running freenas.
It arrived, with nothing included, so I dug out an old power lead and an Ethernet cable and connected it to my monitor, kb and mouse and powered up. It ran through a whole load of commands and eventually spat out an IP address. I reconnected my monitor to my PC and typed the IP into a browser - and up popped the GUI......but asking for username and password! After a bit of Googling, I got past that and was in to the GUI.....but noticed the red alert top right......something about one of the drives. After some reading, I decided that this was probably because freenas was running off one of the drives....no CD drive included and there was no USB stick in.
I spent the next couple of days trying to install freenas via a USB.....eventually got 9.3 STABLE to work.....and the red alert disappeared. So, I started by going through the wizard and re-configuring the drives, adding a user and a group. I then tried to set up a Windows share, which appears to have worked.....but not quite. While I can see the share in windows, when I try and put something in it, I get destination access folder denied.
I have read loads of different ways of setting up a share, but none seem to work.......some appear to say that the user needs to match the Windows user you log in to Windows with, others don't mention that. I have no idea if this needs to be synchronised with Active Directory...or if this is a red herring.
I also set up a WebDAV share to try and access the share with my Android phone, but don't appear to be able to access it using any apps on my phone. The main issue I see here is that the guides I have read appear to imply that you create a WebDAV dataset to access via Android....but I want a volume that can be accessed anywhere....by Windows, Android, Apple....not separate storage for separate device.
If I can figure out how to get the basic storage and sharing working, I can then move on to the full potential of freenas, but if I cant get the basics working, I might as well get an off the shelf device!
Right, this is where I'm probably going to get trolled....my hardware. It is a 2011 Armari 4TE (http://armari.com/custom.asp?SysID=1195), which has had freenas installed by the previous owner who said it worked fine. It is definitely not up to the standards of the required hardware as stated by freenas.......it has a low end mini-ITX mobo (Tyan s3115gm2b) with onboard Intel Atom CPU and 2GB of RAM limit.
However, I don't think that the hardware is causing the issues in what I am trying to do, and if I can get it to work, I am more than willing to invest in a suitable mobo and RAM.
So, my questions are....
1. Does freenas suit my requirements?
2. Is it really that hard to configure storage that can be configured as 'cloud' type storage that can be accessed and written to by any number of different device types. Understand that to answer this question, I will probs have to give a load more detail as to what I have already done and what issues I am encountering.
Cheers (in advance and anticipation of any help).