Using Freenas with Windows AND Mac OS X

[Leroyrondo]

I am new to FreeNas and I want to build my own FreeNas box, but before I put the money and time into it I want to be sure I can use it as much as possible. I've done some research, but have not been able to find a solution. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places. If so, please point me in that direction. I have a Windows 7 desktop machine and a MacBook Pro. I know that Windows will only support certain hard disk formats, such as FAT32 and NTFS, and Mac can read/write to FAT32, but only read from NTFS. But FAT32 also has the 4GB file size limitation, so that format doesn't work for me since I want to be able to store some files which happen to be more than 4GB (HD videos from iTunes). My question is what format can I use that will allow both reading and writing on both my Mac OS X and Windows 7 machines while allowing larger file sizes? Or is there some kind of browsing software that will allow me to be able to use FreeNas on both? Any help is appreciated.

 

[danb35]

Free as will present itself as a network share. The on-disk format doesn't matter (and won't be NTFS or FAT32).

 

[Leroyrondo]

If I'm understanding right, I can just build my FreeNas box (hereafter referred to as "box") like normal, format the disks through the web interface as NTFS (to avoid the file size restriction of FAT32), move my files over, and the OS on the box will provide a way for each OS accessing the box to read/write to the HDD's regardless of whatever OS is reading/writing?

 

[rwillett]

If I'm understanding right, I can just build my FreeNas box (hereafter referred to as "box") like normal, format the disks through the web interface as NTFS (to avoid the file size restriction of FAT32), move my files over, and the OS on the box will provide a way for each OS accessing the box to read/write to the HDD's regardless of whatever OS is reading/writing?

No.

You build your NAS and present a network share to the Windows box. The Windows box mounts the NAS drive as an external Windows share and you use it as a Windows Share. There is no formatting of NTFS at all needed on the share, and indeed you can't do it anyway. The drive presented by FreeNAS is not local to your machine (thats the Network in NAS) and so your windows box cannot directly control it.

Your second statement "the box will provide a way for each OS accessing the box to read/write to the HDD's regardless of whatever OS is reading/writing?" is correct but it is NOT NTFS deep down. FreeNAS will store the file the best way it can do which could be across many disks, across one disk or all sorts of other ways depending on how it is configured. FreeNAS will take care of providing the file to you when you want it.

 

[danb35]

If I'm understanding right, I can just build my FreeNas box (hereafter referred to as "box") like normal, format the disks through the web interface as NTFS ZFS (to avoid the file size restriction of FAT32), move my files over, and the OS on the box will provide a way for each OS accessing the box to read/write to the HDD's regardless of whatever OS is reading/writing?

With the correction I made, yes.

 

[Leroyrondo]

With the correction I made, yes.

Ok. That makes sense. I ain't familiar with the ZFS format. Thanks!