Booting from USB stick required?

[thorndike]

I am wondering why FreeNAS needs to be installed to a USB stick and not an internal hard drive. I am worried about losing the USB stick while the server is operating.

If I have misunderstood the need for a USB stick, can I install an internal disk and reinstall? My disks are set up with ZFS with RAIDZ.

 

[Thomas8675309]

I am wondering why FreeNAS needs to be installed to a USB stick and not an internal hard drive.

Does this help? In particular,

"While technically you can install FreeNAS® onto a hard drive, this is discouraged as you will lose the storage capacity of the drive. In other words, the operating system will take over the drive and will not allow you to store data on it, regardless of the size of the drive."

Best regards,

Tom

 

[thorndike]

Oh, so you can't put the OS on a smaller internal drive while putting the other drives into volumes?

I had hoped to use an 80Gig drive I had laying around for the OS and putting the three new 2TB drives into the array. Oh well! Thanks for the information!

 

[pirateghost]

Why are you concerned with losing the USB stick? FreeNAS writes very minimally to the USB, and should not wear itself out prematurely. If you keep a backup of your config, you can always load up a new stick and import your config. your data doesnt change in that regard

 

[thorndike]

Why are you concerned with losing the USB stick? FreeNAS writes very minimally to the USB, and should not wear itself out prematurely. If you keep a backup of your config, you can always load up a new stick and import your config. your data doesnt change in that regard

Actually, I am more concerned with physically losing the USB stick by folks walking by the server. If it is an easy process, I will have to get one of those really tiny usb sticks and plug it into the back of the machine.

 

[Dusan]

Oh, so you can't put the OS on a smaller internal drive while putting the other drives into volumes?

I had hoped to use an 80Gig drive I had laying around for the OS and putting the three new 2TB drives into the array. Oh well! Thanks for the information!

Yes you can. The recommended approach is to use an USB stick (for reasons already mentioned), but nothing prevents you from using a small HDD drive.

 

[TheSmoker]

You have internal usb headers that can be put inside the cAse so you can have a normal usb stick IN the case.
http://www.delock.de/produkte/F_467_eKonverter_696_Pin-Header.html


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[pirateghost]

Actually, I am more concerned with physically losing the USB stick by folks walking by the server. If it is an easy process, I will have to get one of those really tiny usb sticks and plug it into the back of the machine.

You have internal usb headers that can be put inside the cAse so you can have a normal usb stick IN the case.
http://www.delock.de/produkte/F_467_eKonverter_696_Pin-Header.html


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

This.

Use the internal USB available on practically any system.

 

[Bkomnimon]

I didn't even think about looking for the internal adapters I just used spare usb front jacks had sitting around. With IT there is always a way given motivation you can find a way to rig it :)

 

[TheSmoker]

I didn't even think about looking for the internal adapters I just used spare usb front jacks had sitting around. With IT there is always a way given motivation you can find a way to rig it :)

Messy but will work. I do not like messy though ... ;)

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD