FreeNAS-9.2.1.9-x86 INSTALL V.S. BOOT

[barcud]

Hi,

Yep, i guess i will give it a try and install FreeNAS-9.2.1.9-x86 32bit edition one of our very old, "half a foot already in the grave" file server. All i know it is a supermicro p4 server. And, yes, im a newbee.

So

So:
I successfully made a bootable usb (pen)drive from this: FreeNAS-9.2.1.9-RELEASE-x86.img.xz.
At the cost of our struggles SUPERMICRO finaly boots up from usb-pdendrive, and FreeNAS sucesfully loads, i can log in etc. (but I haven't set anything yet)
But i assumes, the OS loaded from USB-pedrive, and it did not offer me to install it on the servers OS-HDD to stay there permament.

I have try to make another bootable USB from FreeNAS-9.2.1.9-RELEASE-x86.iso, but both rufus, balena Etcher says: it can't be made to bootable. So here i am stucked. (the built in CD drive does not operate...)

How can i get it to install FreeNAS-9.2.1.9, don't just boot?
Img and Iso are the same?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Ericloewe]

To be honest, every part of this screams "bad idea". ZFS doesn't even play nicely with 32-bit systems.*

9.2 is positively ancient. Seven years ago ancient. There's going to be extremely limited value in running such an old version. Hell, it didn't even boot from ZFS yet, that was introduced in 9.3 in late 2014/early 2015.

What's your goal here? Maybe we can find a more sane option for you.

*Yeah, it's more complicated than that, but it's a good rule of thumb.

 

[barcud]

Hi,

Somewhere I felt this would be the answer.

This servers was Avid Media Engine a log time ago. (media sever for video editing. Operates with Windows Server 2003 + Avid Unity array management software developed by Avid).
Since there is no any support/update to the specifically developed client app, there is no any way to access to the Volume anymore from 64bit OS.

Our goal is keep it from being thrown away, and continue to use it's 16TB of storage as a NAS.
We thought Free NAS is a better option than WinServer 2003...
But it may not be worth the fight.


All ideas are welcome,

Thanks.

 

[sretalla]

I would just be looking for the leanest Linux distro you can find that will install (maybe Ubuntu Server 16 LTS) and install zfs on linux and samba... that's most likely to get you something, but be warned that ZFS is known to be unstable with less than 8GB of RAM to work with if you're playing with TBs worth of pool data.

 

[Chris Moore]

Yep, i guess i will give it a try and install FreeNAS-9.2.1.9-x86 32bit edition one of our very old, "half a foot already in the grave" file server. All i know it is a supermicro p4 server.

Sorry, I didn't read all the other comments first, I stopped right here and just couldn't...
I have got to ask why would you choose to use such an old version of FreeNAS?
Then, do you have some hardware that is just one generation newer so we can get away from the Front Side Bus thing?
Now I will go back to reading...

 

[Chris Moore]

This servers was Avid Media Engine a log time ago. (media sever for video editing. Operates with Windows Server 2003 + Avid Unity array management software developed by Avid).
Since there is no any support/update to the specifically developed client app, there is no any way to access to the Volume anymore from 64bit OS.

Here is the next question then... What is the disk controller being used? If this was a Windows server, it probably has hardware RAID, which does not work well (very badly actually) with ZFS. ZFS is the native file system for FreeNAS / TrueNAS.

Our goal is keep it from being thrown away, and continue to use it's 16TB of storage as a NAS.
We thought Free NAS is a better option than WinServer 2003...
But it may not be worth the fight.

Also, is there already data in this system you are trying to regain access to? If we upgrade the RAM above 8GB (required) convert your storage controller to a SAS HBA (required) and reformat the disk pool to ZFS, that would eliminate accessing any previous data that was in the system.

I think we need more hardware background before deciding for certain, but this looks to be incompatible.

 

[Ericloewe]

Then, do you have some hardware that is just one generation newer so we can get away from the Front Side Bus thing?

More like two or three generations, this is pre-x64 Pentium 4 hardware. I hate waste as much as the next guy, but at some point hardware isn't good enough for this sort of work anymore.