The real question is why wouldn't you want USB? USB is more power efficient, doesn't use a SATA port, and can get the job done.
No, that's NOT the real question - that's a pointless question. Of course I would prefer USB, but the point is that this machine WON'T boot from USB. You don't need to convince me that USB is better, it's just not an option on this machine. That's why I'd like to use a small partition for the system, and another partition for the data. It seems pretty pointless to use a whole SATA port for ~150 meg of installation. (remember - USB flash ISN'T an option - so it's got to be HDD)
I haven't seen a computer that won't boot USB in years and years. I'd almost say that if your computer can't boot from USB it likely doesn't have the power to run FreeNAS.
It's a good thing you "almost" said that and didn't ACTUALLY say it, because then you'd be wrong. I'm trying to use FreeNAS for one of its best uses: repurposing old hardware to give it a longer useful life. The machine I'm using it on is an old Shuttle SFF box (last firmware update 2007, i875p chipset). The machine has a 2.8GHz P4, 2g ram, gigabit ethernet and 2 3.5" drive bays, which I'm sure is plenty to run FreeNAS in a home environment. The ONLY thing it's missing is bootable USB, which is why I asked this question in the first place.
This has been hashed out over and over and over in the forums. If you want to know the technical reasons go search the forums. I don't feel like explaining it...again.. for the 10th time. :P
I asked this question in an active thread in the Help/Installation forum in which the OP asked my exact question and hadn't received a response. I think that's pretty precise and appropriate. I got to this thread because I searched for something that matched my question.
I think your value-add here is 0. You didn't answer the question, but rather tried to explain why I should use bootable USB on a system that doesn't have bootable USB, which is a complete waste of time. If you're really tired of explaining things, don't troll forums and drop useless responses just for the sake of sounding smart while you add no value.
If you had wanted to provide value, you could have posted a link to where this has been "hashed out over and over and over" in the forums or where you've explained it 9 times before. Then people with the same question who stumble upon this thread in the future will go there.
As the OP suggests, NAS4free.org has a similar product running on freeBSD that will do the drive partitions just fine and suits my needs, so I've gone that way. Thanks for making me feel good about the FreeNAS support community.
