Installing off of USB drive...?

[SilverJS]

Hi guys,

Just got the parts for my file server. Still not sure which OS I'll be going with, but I suppose for my needs, FreeNAS is probably best.

I built my box with FreeBSD in mind, though, and so didn't get an optical drive. (FreeBSd has memstick-specific images available.) Anywho - Is there a way to install FreeNAS from a thumb drive? I would be installing it to a regular hard drive, btw.

I understand there used to be FreeNAS images available...? Now, there are only ISO's...? I tried doing an xcopy of the freenas iso to my thumbdrive in Windows, but I can't test that right now. If I try booting on this computer right now with that newly-created USB stick, I just get a prompt telling me to disconnect all devices and try again or something like that.

If it comes down to that, I can cannibalize one of my working PC's for an install via CD/DVD, but would rather avoid that....

Thanks for the help!

P.S. - On another note : Should I got for the 8 Release or 8.0.1 beta? What are the big differences?

 

[Bohs Hansen]

http://forums.freenas.org/showthread.php?251-How-to-write-the-embedded-FreeNAS-8-image-under-Windows

Keep in mind, FreeNAS 8.x is still very young and might not have all the features yet that the 0.7 versions have. Depending on your needs, you might want to go with a 0.7 for now.

 

[SilverJS]

Perfect, thanks!

WRT 0.7 vs 0.8 - what exactly are you referring to?

BTW, just saw you're from Denmark - I have worked with quite a few Danes, and actually have been there (Copenhagen and Kolding, amongst others). LOVED the place, and its women too! =)

 

[Bohs Hansen]

WRT 0.7 vs 0.8 - what exactly are you referring to?

8.0, not 0.8 :) 8.x is a complete new base its build on and pretty much everything has to be build from scratch. 0.72 (think is the newest of the old builds) is a bit more advanced when it comes to the list of features (like web server, GUI options etc) http://www.freenas.org/category/version-comparison

 

[SilverJS]

I didn't realize that 8.0 had LOST some features (but, gained a few as well, although the net result seems like a slight loss). What are its advantages, then? Other than the newest ZFS version...?

Mind you, for what I'll be doing with it, it's probably not a big deal (simple file server, 4 3TB data drives, 2 parity, 1 hot spare - done).

 

[Bohs Hansen]

The new system is more adaptive (or will be). It's also based on a newer FreeBSD/nanoBSD version. One of the big benefits is the nanoBSD structure and USB boot, giving you an extra free internal connector for an extra hdd.
It's the future, but still very fresh. If you just want something that just works and you don't have to manipulate much yourself, you should prolly stick with the 0.7x version for now.

However the people here are very friendly and usually willing to help with the trouble you might run in to. It might depend on what hardware you got (drivers etc), if you need smartd, USP etc. Both have their ups and downs right now and hard to give a direct answer. Best i can tell is to read a bit around the forums and see.
Also the more people use the new and can give feedback, the faster the devs can make it better and fix the small glitches that are unavoidable.

A little other thing worth considering concerning your first post, invest in a USB dvd drive/burner at some point. I did that about a year ago and pulled out all my internal optical drives and now i just use the same drive on whatever system I need it .. the 3-5times a year I need a optical drive. They have gotten really cheap by now .. I've eaten fastfood that cost more :)

In regards to your 8.0 vs 8.0.1beta3 question, pick the beta if you go for 8.x. There have already been fixed quite a few glitches since the 8.0 release.

 

[SilverJS]

Awesome. Thanks for the help. I'll download the beta for 8.0.1 then - I've done a trial run with 8.0 and was fairly impressed. It was a cinch to setup Windows shares and for the share to appear on my other computers.

Two quick questions :

1. I didn't see anywhere the option to INSTALL FreeNAS on my physical hard drive. It only seems to want to RUN from the USB stick, but I want to have it installed on the hard drive. Like I had said, I had originally wanted this to be a FreeBSD system and had thus bought a 500G hard drive to use a system drive. Quite frankly I became a HUGE fan of FreeNAS this afternoon, and might consider using it for good, and on a USB stick - but for now, any way I can install it to a hard drive?

2. I followed all the steps in the video on YouTube (fairly new, posted 5-6 days ago) about system setup and shares setup. I could see my new share, BUT - I couldn't write to it. I apparently didn't have permission to do that...? Any ideas why?

Thanks!

 

[Brand]

You can install all versions of FreeNAS 8 to a hard drive or a USB flash drive. You do need to be warned though that the FreeNAS OS will be installed on a 1-2GB partition (depending on the version) and the rest of the drive will not be usable unless you do some CLI hacking and is not guaranteed to work with future FreeNAS versions. FreeNAS is REALLY designed to be installed to a USB flash drive, it will work with a hard drive but not ideal.

 

[SilverJS]

OK, but HOW do I install it to a hard drive, should I want to? =)

Also, assuming I wanted to try out version 7 - physdiskwrite won't let me write the Freenas 7 .img file to my USB stick (says "failed to open freenas" or some such). WinDiskImage will, but for some reason, the computer won't boot with that. So far, I can only boot with both versions of FreeNAS 8, off a USB stick, burnt with physdiskwrite.

 

[joeschmuck]

To install use the tried and true method of writing an ISO image to CD (I use CD-RW) and then boot your NAS device from it. It will give you the option to install and where to.

One other way I have done this is to use a Virtual Machine (no hard drives) with a USB flash drive configured and boot from the iso image then install to the flash. This results in no creation of a CD. VMWare Player is a free product and does the deal for me if you don't have a CD drive on your NAS box.