New To FreeNAS: Seagate Central Question

[mirak13]

Hi,
I am very new to FreeNAS and am about to take the plunge into this brave new world.... As hardware is very expensive in Egypt, I am hoping to use all my old hardware in order to build my FreeNAS server. My question concerns a 2 TB Seagate Central NAS drive that has served me well for the past two years. Since it is still in good condition I was hoping to somehow integrate it into my new setup, it seams such a waste to simply put it away and I do not wish to destroy my drive and removing the HD in order to place it into my new server. has anyone figured out a way of somehow integrating both into a network?

 

[Nick2253]

You can easily use the drive in your FreeNAS server, but it will require you removing the drive from the enclosure.

If you are really set against opening it up, you could use it as a backup. I'm not sure exactly what kind of capability it has, but you should be able to use it as an Rsync target.

 

[mirak13]

Thanks for your prompt reply.
Its a 2TB disk.
Not I would not like to remove it from it's enclosure if I can avoid it.
Forgive my ignorance but what is a Rsync target and how would i go about setting that up?

 

[Nick2253]

Rsync is a program that is used to sync files. It has tremendous capabilities, but it would take an essay to go through it all. Or, you could just read the rsync manual (https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi...h=FreeBSD+Ports+11.1&arch=default&format=html).

Setting up an rsync task is described in the FreeNAS manual (http://doc.freenas.org/11/tasks.html?highlight=rsync). You'll have to refer to your Seagate manual for configuring everything on the receiving side.

 

[mirak13]

Seems complex.
Can't I just connect it via the ethernet cable to the network and have my FreeNAS Server see and use it as another drive in the system? Somehow disable it as a NAS server i.e. stop my network from seeing it as a NAS server so it is only seen and controlled by the FreeNAS server? Would it create a conflict with my FreeNAS?

 

[Nick2253]

The short answer is "no".

The longer answer is also "no" to the specific question, and "mostly no" to variations on your question. The capacity you're really looking for here is what is known as a distributed file system: a central server is able to access multiple different buckets of storage spread over a network (or many networks), and piece them together into a single large bucket. Complicated distributed file systems are capable of understanding the underlying reliability of each bucket, as well as the reliability of the network(s) as a whole, and ensure that each piece of data has the appropriate amount of redundancy (here I'm basically describing features of GlusterFS).

If you think setting up rsync is complex, you're going to be very overwhelmed with a distributed file system.