Do I need a Raid setup? I just have an external 1TB drive.

[Goldenrottie]

I have a Sony home theater system w/blue ray etc... I also have an external USB 1TB HDD w/ media on it.
I would like to use an old HP that I have lying around and use it to stream video, music, etc...
After installing freeNAS to USB stick, can I connect my external drive without formatting so that my Blueray will recognize it and I can stream video?

I'm really a novice at this so please excuse me if i've asked a wrong question etc...
Any help would be appreciated

 

[jafin]

You cannot have a raid setup with 1 drive. Do you know what format your USB drive is? If it is NTFS or UFS you may be able to import it into freenas via the GUI / Storage / Active Volumes. But to see it from your Sony, I think you'll need to run a DLNA server, and I can't find an option for that under Freenas 8. I'm pretty sure 7.2 had a DLNA server, so you may want to take a look at that version.

If you are able to import the drive, setup DLNA (assuming this is what the blueray device wants) then you shouldn't have a problem streaming it across your network (note: if your network is wireless you may need to test first it may not have the bandwidth for BlueRay HD, if your network is wired, no problem).

See the roadmap for 8.1 looks like DLNA is on the queue. http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Roadmap_for_8.1

 

[jgreco]

You cannot have a raid setup with 1 drive.

Well that's not exactly true... it's true that he shouldn't try though. FreeNAS has the very competent ZFS to trivialize things.

In the old days, we used to use CCD to set up RAID1 between two partitions on the same disk for cases where we thought there might be data loss; even today such cases exist where things like flash go bad. You stand a better chance at recovering data that's been written to more than one place. Of course, the ZFS equivalent of that is "zfs set copies=2".

You can also set up RAID when there's reason to think you'll be adding disk space later (simple concatenation). Depending on your software stack, there might be overhead consumed for the driver's metadata, etc. I believe Online:DiskSuite was that way. ZFS also trivializes this, of course.

So just because you probably don't *want* to do it with FreeNAS doesn't mean that such a setup isn't possible. ;-)

 

[jafin]

This is not helping OP, but how can you have a "Redundant Array of Independent Disks" with just 1 disk? Yes you can logically have it like you mention but its still just 1 physical disk your acting upon. There is no 'disk' redundancy in that configuration.

 

[matthewowen01]

you can setup freenas with 1 disk. it wont be redundant but it will work just fine.

 

[jgreco]

This is not helping OP, but how can you have a "Redundant Array of Independent Disks" with just 1 disk? Yes you can logically have it like you mention but its still just 1 physical disk your acting upon. There is no 'disk' redundancy in that configuration.

I take it you've never seen bad blocks develop on a disk and wished that you had more than one copy of the data stored. Even storing the data in a different location on the same disk provides some redundancy. It won't cover when the whole disk goes kaput, naturally, but it can really save your rear when you can at least recover the data and load it onto a new disk.

 

[Goldenrottie]

Thanks for everyones help. I guess I will call sony and find out what I can do. I just wanted to be able to stream movies to my home theater system. And FreeNAS looked like a cool project for me.

Thanks again.

 

[matthewowen01]

I take it you've never seen bad blocks develop on a disk and wished that you had more than one copy of the data stored. Even storing the data in a different location on the same disk provides some redundancy. It won't cover when the whole disk goes kaput, naturally, but it can really save your rear when you can at least recover the data and load it onto a new disk.

he could always set copies to 2 or something, it will keep 2 separate copies of every file. It's one of the many ZFS attributes.

 

[jgreco]

he could always set copies to 2 or something, it will keep 2 separate copies of every file. It's one of the many ZFS attributes.

Unfortunately, that only works if you have ZFS, which is a filesystem that sits on a block device of some sort. While ZFS has a RAID implementation available within its implementation, RAID can also be implemented at a lower level, either in software or in hardware, depending. This has the interesting advantage of working with other filesystems (or with raw devices even, for those of us who have stuff that works that way). This is useful for people who want to, oh, say, not use ZFS because their NAS is only exporting iSCSI devices and only have a small amount of RAM available.

I will note that your comment implies that you didn't bother to read the thread, where ... ah, yes, there it is ... I helpfully noted that ZFS offers copies=N.

 

[matthewowen01]

I will note that your comment implies that you didn't bother to read the thread, where ... ah, yes, there it is ... I helpfully noted that ZFS offers copies=N.

I missed 4 words from the end of a paragraph that started "In the old days..." I would have hopped you learned how to have a polite conversation by now.

 

[jgreco]

I missed 4 words from the end of a paragraph that started "In the old days..." I would have hopped you learned how to have a polite conversation by now.

It seemed like you were not following the conversation. I will note that there was substantially more than "4 words" you appeared to have missed, as there were several messages that made up the stream of discussion to that point, and it ought to have been clear that the topic had moved away from ZFS.

 

[matthewowen01]

1. zfs
2. set
3. copies=
4. 2

That's 4. Anyways, I'm done discussing this with you.

 

[matthewowen01]

To the OP: if you give us the make and model we can take a look and see what formats your device can utilize.

 

[jgreco]

1. zfs
2. set
3. copies=
4. 2

That's 4. Anyways, I'm done discussing this with you.

Ah, I see. Once again, you really didn't bother to read what was written. If you are unwilling or unable to read what's been written, it's probably good that you're done discussing this. In polite conversation, it's typically best to read what's been written; this helps to avoid making the goof you made, for example. The way you're proceeding is not helpful to anyone.

 

[headconnect]

Guys, i think this thread is already waaay outside the OP's comfort zone (noted by the original question being more related to 'hooking it up to an old hp' with the intention as using freenas as a dnlp server). I think the concept of mirroring two partitions on a single drive is theoretically interesting, but considering the last message by the OP alluding to calling sony to figure out what to do next, I think the purpose of the thread has been served :)

Simply stated, FreeNAS is unsuitable for the OP's purposes, and OP is content with that. Would any of you seriously suggest to someone who is thinking about a freenas setup honestly recommend a single drive setup with mirrored partitions? I think all of us would sincerely suggest running two or more drives for security. I still think the concept is interesting, but let's take a breather from this thread until OP comes back for more help :)

Also, to the OP - if you're still there, I don't think you need RAID, just remember to bsck up your data if it's important to you. If you want to serve to a sony setup, I would suggest you check out PS3 Media Server, it will transcode to ps3-acceptable formats, which will most likely give you the best chance of reaching other sony devices. Try a google search for it, if you still can't find it, just ask me and I'll dig up the link :)