Running Windows 7 AND FreeNAS on the same system

[mshnryman]

I am building a very powerful system and I would like to use it both as a Windows computer and as a FreeNAS server. Is this possible?
I'm sure I could dual-boot with W7 & FreeNAS, use 3 of the 4 HDD's as FreeNAS drives in RAID, and reserve one drive for the Windows OS. The problem I see would be accessing the FreeNAS drives while in Windows. Is this possible, and is it possible to share the drives as a NAS while using Windows at the same time?

I would appreciate any help I can get with this. My main concern is the fact that while it would be a powerful computer that I would like to use for media editing, etc, I would possibly have to have NAS downtime any time that I use Windows.

I'm sure a similar question has been asked before, but I couldn't find it anywhere - so I'm asking it.

 

[warri]

You could setup the FreeNAS system in a virtual machine running inside your Windows OS. I think it could share the LAN connection of the host system and even get an own IP address, so it would appear to be a normal member of the local network.

I haven't tried that kind of setup by myself, so no idea if that will cause any issues. Maybe somebody else can help you more.

 

[mshnryman]

You could setup the FreeNAS system in a virtual machine running inside your Windows OS. I think it could share the LAN connection of the host system and even get an own IP address, so it would appear to be a normal member of the local network.

I haven't tried that kind of setup by myself, so no idea if that will cause any issues. Maybe somebody else can help you more.

That could be just the setup I need. I've used the virtual machine function before, and if it works with FreeNAS, that could be a great solution!

If it works, I could set FreeNAS up in BOTH the boot menu AND as a virtual machine in Windows. I could then set it up to autorun when Windows starts, and when I'm not using Windows, I could reboot into FreeNAS (which I assume will be a lot better at power sipping and much less resource-hungry). This way, the only NAS downtime would be when rebooting from Windows/virtual FreeNAS to FreeNAS & vice versa.

I hope others have some experience doing this and/or suggestions for the best implementation of this setup.

 

[ProtoSD]

It's possible to run FreeNAS from VMware in Windows and map to physical disks, the thing you need to keep in mind as far as the dual boot goes is that FreeNAS needs it's own disk, not a partition. If you setup the dual boot to boot FreeNAS off a flash drive and Windows from a hard drive, that's fine, but FreeNAS creates 4 PRIMARY partitions for itself and doesn't like to share it's OS disk. The other concern is to keep Windows from wanting to label or write an ID number to the disks or nagging you to format them after you've assigned them to FreeNAS.

It should be doable, once you understand the gotchas.

 

[survive]

Hi mshnryman,

I think what you are asking is perfectly do-able, but you really need to consider if it should be done....what problem are you really trying to solve?

-Will

 

[mshnryman]

It's possible to run FreeNAS from VMware in Windows and map to physical disks, the thing you need to keep in mind as far as the dual boot goes is that FreeNAS needs it's own disk, not a partition. If you setup the dual boot to boot FreeNAS off a flash drive and Windows from a hard drive, that's fine, but FreeNAS creates 4 PRIMARY partitions for itself and doesn't like to share it's OS disk. The other concern is to keep Windows from wanting to label or write an ID number to the disks or nagging you to format them after you've assigned them to FreeNAS.

It should be doable, once you understand the gotchas.

I think I get what you're saying. Let me explain exactly how this system would be running, so we can determine if the setup will work. There will be 5 drives in the computer. For the purpose of an example, I'm going to call them Drives "C" "D" "E" "F" & "G". Drives C-F are HDD's where G is a SSD. Drive C would be the Windows drive; drives D, E and F will be in RAID for FreeNAS. G, the SSD, will be used to keep the ZIL for FreeNAS.

What I am wondering is if I can Install Windows on C, then restart and boot into FreeNAS, set up the NAS on D,E,F, then boot back into Windows and use the setup (created by booting into FreeNAS) to run under VMware. My intention would be for these two setups to run and be accessed over the network the same way, where I can be running either FreeNAS by itself, or FreeNAS under VMware. I would like it to be interchangeable, where I could reboot into FreeNAS after I'm done running whatever Windows applications I'm using, so that I only boot into Windows when I am using it.

Hi mshnryman,

I think what you are asking is perfectly do-able, but you really need to consider if it should be done....what problem are you really trying to solve?

-Will

The problem I am trying to solve is to not have to buy 2 separate systems. My system will be running a Core i7 6 core processor w/ 16GB RAM and a lot of other nice internals. I would hate to waste all that processor/system power by just using it as a NAS all the time. I want it to be able to store/stream all of my media (which is a lot of space since I have all my DVD/Blu-Ray collection in ISO's) and at the same time be able to use it for heavy-duty processes, like video editing/rendering etc.

 

[mshnryman]

You're right survive, setting up shares on Windows may just be the best way to go to avoid the complexity of this setup.
The main thing I was trying to avoid was a power-hungry W7 machine being always-on so I could access it from the TV, other computers both local and remote, and on my android phone.
Maybe I should just bite the bullet and get another PC for use solely as a NAS w/ FreeNAS.

 

[survive]

Hi mshnryman,

So why not make the new system your desktop & use the old system (assuming there is an old one) for FreeNAS?

I don't know anything about you or your needs, but it seems to me that trying to use one box for both your workstation & your filer is just going to lead to more hassle than you might want. You could certainly try virtualizing a FreeNAS instance through VirtualBox or something, but once again...to what end? You already have a box that can do CIFS shares with the Windows install.

I would suggest you look at something like an HP Microserver which can be had for around $200, put 8GB of RAM in it. Use the cash you were going to spend on an SSD to get a 4th drive and just be happy with both new systems.

-Will

 

[mshnryman]

Hi mshnryman,
So why not make the new system your desktop & use the old system (assuming there is an old one) for FreeNAS?
-Will

I had been thinking about doing this. I have a couple questions.
This is my current computer: http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/ca/e...2133158-12133158-81574412-81582832.html?dnr=1 (HP m8330f)

Questions:
What should I upgrade on this PC to make it a good FreeNAS server?
I currently have 6GB RAM, I'm assuming that getting a few more would be good, since 1GB/TB of HDD seems to be the recommended ratio, and I'm planning on a 9TB NAS.
I'm assuming that the 1st gen SATA will be ok on this, since the spec is 1.5GBit/s, is this correct or should I upgrade to SATA 3 via a couple PCI-e cards?

Here are the basics of the computer (in case you don't want to click the HP link)
The relevant upgrades that I have made to this setup: Added 3GB RAM to bring total to 6 and installed Gbit PCI-e NIC.

Processor
AMD Phenom™ 9500 Quad-Core Processor
• 2.20 GHz, 2MB L2 + 2MB shared L3 Cache, 2000 MHz System Bus

Chipset
NVIDIA nForce 430 Chipset

Memory Type
PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM memory
Memory slots
4 DIMM (240-pin, DDR2) (occupied)

Hard disk controller
Serial ATA hard drive

Network interface
Integrated 10/100BaseT network interface

External drive bays
2 external 5.25" (one available) 2 internal 3.5" (occupied)

Expansion slots
1 PCI (occupied), 2 PCI Express x1 (1 available), 1 PCI Express x16 (occupied)

 

[survive]

Hi mshnryman,

That should be fine save for 2 things. First is the Nvidia NIC, which might be a little dodgy under FreeBSD\FreeNAS, which you can fix with a $25.00 Intel "CT" pci-e nic which will work just fine. The second, bigger problem is the case. I don't know how you would go & get 4 or more drives in there. If the board uses standard mounting holes you could look into moving the whole system into something like a Fractal Design R3 case.

-Will

 

[Brosif_My_Nif]

I did this with my machine. I ran FreeNAS inside a virtual machine so I could use my computer as a FreeNAS/HTPC Hybrid. Needless to say, I eventually trashed that idea after some testing. I had a lot of trouble gaining RAW Disk Access. I was able to do it, but replacing a failed drive wasn't as easy. Also, when I presented more than (1) CPU core to the virtual machine, it would lock up the Virtual Machine.

I'm sure it can be done, as I had it running for a while, but my data is just too precious for something to happen to it. I do wedding photography for a part time job so I can't risk anything happening to my images. I eventually just bought a PS3, and plan to set up miniDLNA as the only thing I really want to watch are movies streaming from my NAS.

Good luck with your endeavors to get it working. I'm curious to see if you get it rock solid.

 

[arod20832]

mshnryman, I've been running FN8 under virtual box for a few months. So far I have not run into any issues (VM has 8GB RAM/2 cores/Raw disk access to 6TB RAIDZ). The VM runs as a service via http://vboxvmservice.sourceforge.net/ and it's very transparent. There is a penalty in performance however due to the overhead of virtualizing the network components -- my read/write speeds are generally limited to about ~35-40MB/s. This is just fine for my use cases. I mostly use my NAS to store video/photos. With this setup I can stream at least 2 full 1080P streams without hiccups (haven't attempted more than two simultaneous streams over the network).

 

[Z300M]

It's possible to run FreeNAS from VMware in Windows and map to physical disks, the thing you need to keep in mind as far as the dual boot goes is that FreeNAS needs it's own disk, not a partition. If you setup the dual boot to boot FreeNAS off a flash drive and Windows from a hard drive, that's fine, but FreeNAS creates 4 PRIMARY partitions for itself and doesn't like to share it's OS disk. The other concern is to keep Windows from wanting to label or write an ID number to the disks or nagging you to format them after you've assigned them to FreeNAS.

It should be doable, once you understand the gotchas.

Running FreeNAS (FreeBSD being a superior OS) as guest OS in Windows (an inferior OS) makes no sense to me. When I searched these forums for "virtual machine" I was looking for a way to run Windows (XP would do) as guest in FreeBSD/FreeNAS, then running the Logitech Media Server in Windows so that I don't have to have it running on a separate Windows machine that is otherwise dedicated to another purpose.