Starting from scratch

[RandomNameAndNumber]

I am no slouch when it comes to creating things from online instructions and patience. I have no patience today. I have tried a few methods to get a SD micro card in an adapter to boot my "new" nas running. Its is a Hewlett Packard DC 5800 w/8gb ram and a Core2 Duo 3.0ghz. I have a 40gb SSD & TWO (2x) 2 TB hdd. I would like these mirrored in the event of a single drive failure. Honestly, I would like the OS on the Flash drive, and the 2x 2tb as backups (raid-1).

How do I get the 11.1 image onto a 2gb flash drive so I can boot from it?

I am done fiddling. I have wasted hours, and learned nothing. I have no experience with Unix/linux or any of its derivatives.

 

[Chris Moore]

How do I get the 11.1 image onto a 2gb flash drive so I can boot from it?

You can't. http://www.freenas.org/hardware-requirements/
The MINIMUM size of a boot drive is 8GB.

I am done fiddling.

Did you read the manual? http://doc.freenas.org/11/freenas.html

 

[RandomNameAndNumber]

No.

I was going off of older info concerning older builds. Thanks for the link. I will look it over tomorrow after work. It seems that the 11.XX builds are different then the 9.xx builds that the rest of the net is referencing.

I don't have a DVD-r drive, so burning the ISO is impossible. The target machine doesn't have a DVD drive, as the drives are populated with HDDs.

I don't have multiple 8+GB USB Flash drives that are available. Technically I have ONE, but it has uses around the house, and I won't tie it up for something like this.

Any suggestions?

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Edit
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2.2.2.
Used windows download tool. It states it is not a valid ISO file.

Having some luck with Rufus. We will see how this goes. I really should be in bed 2 hours ago lol. I can't help but make hardware do things it was never meant to do.

 

[Chris Moore]

I have a 40gb SSD

That is probably the best bet to install the OS to, you just need to make a USB stick bootable temporarily to load the OS, then you can put the USB drive back the way it was.

 

[RandomNameAndNumber]

I will apologize for the first post, not just to you Chris, but to anyone who read it. I normally am not so obtuse with computers & other people. I was tired from working 60 hours this week outdoors, and trying to do something I have never done before with an installation method never attempted. I ended up getting exactly what I wanted, and installed onto the 40gb SSD. After that I went to bed. Tonight I will attempt to make sense of the interface, and configure it in a way I need. It does not seem to recognize my wireless card, so I may hook it into a spare wireless router via Ethernet, and just create a separate private network around the house. The eventual goal is to put this pc somewhere discreet.

I got these drives after a bit of research, and most recommend them for NAS. I accidently ordered too many, and now have 4x Western Digital RE-4 2tb hdd. My PC is much easier to work with in terms of raid setups, so I may use the other 2 there instead of the pair of 15 year old 250gb raid-1. My backup is doomed to fail any moment now, and this is part of the reason there is a rush.

RUFUS was the only method of the 3 that allowed me to create an installation USB flash drive as well.

 

[Chris Moore]

I will apologize for the first post, not just to you Chris, but to anyone who read it.

Thanks.

It does not seem to recognize my wireless card,

No wireless networking support built into FreeNAS. On purpose.

Any other questions?

 

[RandomNameAndNumber]

Any other questions?

I never got to fiddle. My daughter somehow got click-baited and her PC got filled up with some garbage virus of some kind or another. I had to reformat/reinstall. Good times.

I haven't fiddled with it at all. I am still trying to figure out how I would like it configured to protect data & be available for the purposes. I think that FTP would be the best, but would love to have a network drive listed under my windows hard drives. The main purpose is a very controlled and isolated data storage for things that I cannot lose (Again), which is why I want mirrored so I can replace single failing drives without data loss.

I just need time to play with freenas. I currently have it networked to my wireless PC's ethernet port and using network sharing. I can access the GUI via my browser, but that is literally as far as I got. The whole thing is foreign at this point, and I plan to break it a few times to learn what I can and can't do before I seriously try to transfer my music files and family photos.

 

[RandomNameAndNumber]

Any other questions?

I think I figured out the bare minimum that I would like.

At this point, I would be content using an FTP client to connect to the NAS. I am familiar with FTP. I don't think I could configure this to give me a network drive due to my skill level, but I do know how to use FTP to connect with remote servers.

I did manage to connect to the NAS as root user. Yay. It looks like this connects to the ROOT drive which is the 40gb SSD.

I did manage to make a USER account. I cannot connect to the server. It accepts the user name and password. How could I configure this user to connect to the 2tb mirror drive? I would like to have no part in this account having root access.

 

[Chris Moore]

I think I figured out the bare minimum that I would like.

Take a look at this video and see if it doesn't cover the setup items you are interested in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMZ-s8wHkHw

He recommends encryption. Don't do that.

 

[RandomNameAndNumber]

EXCELLENT! Many thanks. That video answered more then any amount of forum discussions could have I think. I managed to set up a server, Xfer a measly 400gb of data and then attempt a mock-failure....I learned how important it is to save the config WITH the key.

I am able to access the drive through my network and provide it with the created username/password.

FreeNAS is HEAVY duty. There are options to do things I don't know anything about, nor would I ever use. I think the industry term is "robust". HOWEVER, the seed has been planted, and the desire to know more intensifies. Having this basic knowledge makes it easier to understand more of what is happening within my cute little home NAS.

Thanks again Chris!

My future "goals" are getting this thing set to a Static IP, which seems fairly simple.
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-to-set-up-a-static-ip-for-freenas-gui.15825/

I don't care if the NAS is on the same network as my "internet" router, and have a spare router. My next goal would be to ethernet the NAS to my spare router and create a wireless network JUST for access to the NAS. My reasoning for this is that I don't need data instantly, so speed of transfer is no issue, but wired connection is all but impossible.

I am not 100% on the final part of this however. I may use the NAS Pc (HP dc5800) as a desktop monitor riser. I have a Sony GDM-FW900 for a monitor, and don't know if the case can tolerate that much weight long term. This would allow me to let the NAS plugged into my "desktop" pc and share the ethernet connection. As of now, it does not seem that others can see/connect to the NAS, but this is undoubtedly some issue caused by things I don't understand and cannot articulate. Internet connection sharing is not a normal connection method.

 

[RandomNameAndNumber]

Any other questions?

I do now have a somewhat informed question after using this NAS for the day.

I have backed up everything I feel I need to at this point. I fell back on USB Booting the OS, mainly because I had to purchase a 3-pack of 16gb flash drives.

IF my flash drive fails, I can reinstall FreeNAS to another flash drive. So long as I Saved the config WITH the exported "Secret Seed" I will be able to continue to use the NAS as I had before flash drive failure? This won't cause data loss?
I haven't tested it yet, but so long as I have this config/seed file saved, I would have no configuration to do? It seems too simple.

I am getting ready to tear down my PC's 15 year old raid-1 "backup" and all 500gb of hard drives. I just want to feel safe.

 

[Chris Moore]

I don't use the encryption because of the possibility of losing access to my data. I don't know if it would work. Have you rebooted the system since you encrypted it?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[RandomNameAndNumber]

I don't know if it would work.

I have not used data encryption on the NAS server. I am more concerned about "future proofing" and looking at the possible first point of failure being the flash drive. IF the flash drive fails, would I lose access to the info UNLESS I had the config w/the "Secret seed" saved?

 

[Chris Moore]

I have not used data encryption on the NAS server. I am more concerned about "future proofing" and looking at the possible first point of failure being the flash drive. IF the flash drive fails, would I lose access to the info UNLESS I had the config w/the "Secret seed" saved?

If you have the pool encrypted, you would loose access to the data without the encryption key.
If the pool is not encrypted, your data would be fine. Even if you didn't save the configuration file, you can import the pool in a fresh install of FreeNAS. It just makes it easier if you have the configuration file.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk