FreeNAS on 2 different network segments?

[Johnny M]

Let me give you a bit of background first: I am running Vmware 5.1 via 3 hosts and a SAN - communication between the hosts and the SAN is dealt with by 2 x NETGEAR 1Gbps Switches which are off the network.

I have built a physical box with FreeNAS 9.1.1 which currently connects to the network and I am in the process of punting over my backup's to this location.

I am wondering however if I can use the physical NETGEAR switches as they are off the network for backups as I think it will be a bit faster. My FREENAS box has 4 physical network cards, is it possible to use one card for management on the network and team the other 2/3 purely on the dedicated off network switches?

Let me know if this is confusing, I know I haven't explained this very well!

Regards,

John

 

[jgreco]

"off the network"?

You cannot use a device that is off the network. "Wireless" doesn't work with wired network technologies. :)

I'm pretty sure what you mean is that you have some Netgear switches that are operating as private networks. Something like what is pictured here

These devices aren't connected to, visible from, or routed to the Internet but are still part of the network.

If that's what you mean, then, yes, of course, very commonly done.

You still need to develop an internally consistent scheme for IP numbering. You will notice that one switch in that picture is configured as "192.168.10.0/24" and the other is "192.168.11.0/24".

You will not have a Controller A and B in your FreeNAS, of course, so you can just ignore the "Controller B" part and you have a good idea of what this would look like implemented on FreeNAS.

 

[Johnny M]

Yes, I know I did not explain myself very well they certainly are not wireless! yes what you have pictured is exactly what I was trying to say, thanks for the help - so what I'm going to do is have one physical LAN management port for the FreeNAS box and the other 3 connected to these switches, do I need to setup the routing to make sure that traffic is going to the correct network segment?

 

[jgreco]

In that sort of topology, no. If you actually have a router (not a home NAT gateway, which people often refer to as a "router" incorrectly) then it is certainly possible to make them all routed subnets as well, but that is basically only adding complexity to a topic that may already be confusing for you since you are clearly unfamiliar with the topic. The easiest thing is just to keep them as private switched storage networks.