First Time Installing, Not sure About Hardware Raid Setting

[sndinc]

I currently have a Raid5 setup in Windows and wanted to move the data to a dedicated machine. I ordered all the hardware to build a FreeNas box. My NIC was not supported pre-9.3 so I waited... I sturggled with putting the install on a USB drive (mount error 2). I gave up and put in a laptop hard drive to boot from. So, now I am up and running but I have some questions.

The reason I wanted to get rid of the Raid5, if it breaks or I have to move the hardware, it is difficult to get it working again. I wanted just a mirrored setup so if one drive fails I can just pull the data straight off the other drive. Now that I am using a mechanic drive for the FreeNas install... what happens if that drive fail? Do you just put in a new drive and install again and everything works?

My other question... I think I used FreeNas a long time ago on a setup where onboard Hardware support for Raid was not common. On all my Window machines, I set up the mirrored Raids outside of the OS. Does FreeNas not work in the same fashion? I assume I was going to need to setup the Raid outside of the OS before even trying to configure that FreeNas setup... is that not how it works because the Initial Setup Wizard is asking me what type of Raid I want to setup.

And finally... if a drive does fail in a Mirrored setup... can you still access the drive as a single drive?

Hopefully all my questions made sense. I really do not know what I am doing with this FreeNas setup and wondering if maybe I should just go back to a Windows install.

 

[BigDave]

Now that I am using a mechanic drive for the FreeNas install... what happens if that drive fail? Do you just put in a new drive and install again and everything works?

Yes, O/S and the data storage drives are separated by design with FreeNAS.

Does FreeNas not work in the same fashion?

Totally not the same!!!
FreeNAS requires direct access to the disks, it does not work with hardware RAID.