Switching from Windows file server to FreeNAS

[jnic_]

Not exactly sure how to word this but, my scenario is currently I am using Windows server 2016 as my file server, and all those files are on a drive, I am planning on making FreeNAS my file server. Will I be able to do this without wiping the drive or can I just boot the drive with FreeNAS or whatever. It would not be ideal for me to have to wipe the drive and put a couple hundred gigabytes worth of data back on it.

 

[DrKK]

FreeNAS uses the ZFS filesystem, which is presumably not compatible with whatever Windows server uses. If you are going to be using the same drive(s), then I'm afraid you'll have to reformat and copy the data back...or, (and you said you only had a couple hundred GB, which by FreeNAS standards, is "extremely extremely tiny"), you could move those files to another disk, say, some kind of external disk, create your FreeNAS and format your disk, and then move those files onto the FreeNAS pool by either mounting your "backup" drive as a NTFS (FreeNAS allows this to transfer files in from a drive temporarily), or by doing something like FTP transfering your files, or SMB (i.e., Windows share) transfering your files over.

 

[Chris Moore]

The difference between windows and FreeNAS are significant. You must have a boot device and a data drive as two physically separate things. There is no boot from a drive and use it as a data drive.

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