Looking for a little help

[Lumpsack]

Hi,

After having my second Lacie 2Big drive fail on me I've decided to turn one of my old PC's into a FreeNAS box - not a bad spec x64 Core2 Quad, 4GB DDR2 etc.

I've salvaged 2x 1TB drives, one form the Lacie and another bought online (also from a Lacie but formatted since), however one thing that I use the lacie for is as a NTFS USB pass though as I have a load of media on that external drive (Seagate 2TB), I don't have enough storage anywhere to host the 2TB so I'm looking for options, ideally I'd like to run the USB as I did before, basically as a shareed folder form the NAS however I'm getting the impression you guys frown on this, although I'd be happy to run it that way if theres a way to wangle it.

So any ideas on how I could get this data on there that doesn't involved further spending as I'm now skint - I wouldn't need Raid on that media as although it would be a pain if I lost it it wouldn't be the end of the world, but I would need raid or similar on the primary drives to keep my photos safe - I plan to use the 2x 1TBs for this.

Thanks,

Lumpsack.

 

[Lumpsack]

Any suggestions, I'm about to build the box and don;t want to have to do it twice if possible.

 

[fracai]

If I read this correctly, you have 2x 1TB drives that will go in the NAS and another 2TB drive with your data. It sounds like you're planning to run the 2x 1TBs as Mirror and the 2TB on its own. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "getting the data on there". Do you want to get all three drives into the NAS as ZFS / UFS?

FreeNAS does support NTFS for read/write so you should be able to just import that drive as is and then mirror the 1TBs. You could also import the 1TBs as individual drives, split your 2TB onto those, import the 2TB as ZFS/UFS, move all the data onto the 2TB, re-import the 1TBs as a mirror, and then move your important data onto the mirror. This depends on having data that can be split up effectively.

Ideally, I think I'd figure out a way to put your three drives together as RAIDZ1 (any friends that could temporarily store your data?). You'd end up with 2TB useable, instead of 3, but your media would be protected as well (2TB protected instead of 1TB). Something to consider anyway. I think it'd give you more flexibility going forward.

Serving from USB isn't a good idea. This was the explanation that I was given as to why serving from USB is bad. Imagine you're working on data from that drive and someone bumps into and dislodges the cable or drive.

 

[Lumpsack]

Thanks very much for the detailed and very helpful reply, sadly it seems my hardware is not playing ball - motherboard issues by the look of it so I abandoned the plan and went with a £60 D-Link sharecentre pulse, I know a cop out but it looks like it will do what I need, but much quieter than teh PC I was to use, taking up less room and a fair bit less hassle.

Again though thank you for taking the time to reply.