My head hurts...setting up FreeNAS or finding alternative

[yankie_1132]

I currently have a HTPC running Win7 that I'm not using anymore. It has a AMD quad and 4gb of memory. So I'm thinking about turning that into a NAS. A lot of people are recommending FreeNAS but it seems like a pain to setup. I know my way around computers but not so much in regards to networking.

From my understanding, all hard drives that are going in have to be formatted right? I have 3 hard drives that I want to put in there, a 1.5TB, 750GB and 500GB....mostly filled with data. Now my question is how am I going to transfer them without losing the information?

I just wanted a system I can access my media files to play on my tv, mobile devices and be able to transfer pics and other files from my laptops and mobile devices to it for a central storage location. Is there any other solution besides FreeNAS?

 

[cyberjock]

All of your disks will have to be formatted, yes. Considering your drives are already NTFS formatted and have data, I'm not sure you have any options. All of the server OSes I'm familiar with will want to format your drives. What you really need is a temporary location to store the data until you migrate it to your new file system. Also, dissimilar disk sizes will usually limit you to the smallest disk size. So you have several obstacles to overcome before you'll be on good footing for a FreeNAS box.

 

[yankie_1132]

Now there are off the shelf devices out there....such as the D-Link DNS-325 for example. It's about $170 used on Amazon. It seems like something that'll fit my needs without having to tinker with setup and config, but the price kind of stinks given it comes without HDs. Any experience with those guys?

 

[cyberjock]

They are often unreliable and eat data without warning. You absolutely get what you pay for when you use those.

Those, from my limited experience with them(thank god), will also want to format your drives. But you should consult the manual for the particular model you are interested in to see if it will reformat your disks or not.

 

[yankie_1132]

Will I be able to clear out, let's say the 1.5TB HD, then have that drive formatted in FreeNAS, then plug in the other two NTFS drives onto the system to have the data transferred over?

Also, you mentioned the different disk sizes will limit me to the smallest size. My intentions were to have just one hard drive be the dedicated backup (and later add another of the same size to be a mirror), and the two and others I may add later, be swappable depending on what data I want accessed in them. I want to work with what I have right now without having to spend money on the proj.

 

[cyberjock]

You can do whatever you feel comfortable with regarding moving drives around. I'd definitely have a backup of your data before you start this whole thing though. If you make mistake it could cost you your data without it...

 

[yankie_1132]

i appreciate the help cyberjock!

 

[ftpmonkey]

For your use, ubuntu might fit the bill. It will read and share NTFS drives as well as having add-ons for sharing media.

To be honest though, Win 7 will do what you need of it. It will share folders and stream media to your home network devices.