Just share HDD

[Foxli]

Hello. I'm new here and have never used anything like it.

I have 5 HDD disks, they already have files on them, which were recorded using Windows 10.

I don't need RAID, I don't need any mirrors / backups. All I need is to access files on disks over the network (router) using Windows 10.
I would like if I need to, I can take out the disk physically and use it on a computer with Windows.

However, all the guides that I find assume formatting disks and creating pools.
What should I do? (I have arleady install FreeNas). There are so many options, I can't find. Thanks!

 

[jgreco]

This is not the right solution for you, then. You are probably looking for a Windows PC. Load a copy of Win10 on there and just make your filesystems shareable to the network.

 

[sretalla]

Maybe this can give you a few ideas about what to do:

How To Use Windows 10 as a Home Server - HomeTech How-To

Using Windows 10 as a home server has a few perks. First of all, you might have been eligible for the free upgrade. Even if you weren't, Windows 10 Pro i...

hometechhowto.com

 

[Foxli]

Thanks for the advice on Windows Server, but Windows doesn't want to detect my old PCI Sata Controller card's. FreeNAS in this regard, everything is fine.

I think that I would be able to copy the data from the previous one after creating the pools. But so far, two questions scare me:
1. Why is the disk size 1.75GB (In the Windows / NTFS - 1.81 GB)
2. Why does each file take up so much more space? (9,28MB File = 9.38MB on FreeNAS disk and 9.28 MB on NTFS disk )
2. Should I create 1 pool per each HDD? (I'm not afraid to lose data from one HDD if it breaks, but I'm afraid to lose all (5HDD) data if one HDD breaks or simply removed)

 

[sretalla]

1. Why is the disk size 1.75GB (In the Windows / NTFS - 1.81 GB)

Maybe you're not reading GiB and GB as different... they are.

2. Why does each file take up so much more space? (9,28MB File = 9.38MB on FreeNAS disk and 9.28 MB on NTFS disk )

ZFS checksum information might explain it.

2. Should I create 1 pool per each HDD? (I'm not afraid to lose data from one HDD if it breaks, but I'm afraid to lose all (5HDD) data if one HDD breaks or simply removed)

You can do that. It would seem to make sense based on your provided needs. Unless you expect all pools to be shared under the same SMB share... in that case you need to make one larger pool as you can't share multiple datasets/pools in one SMB share.