Why isn't advisable to install FreeNas on a disk ?

[mdimuzio]

Hi,
I read in the official FreeNAS documentation that isn't advisable to install FreeNAS on hard disk, but only inside a usb stick or a flash disk.

Why ? What are the practical/technological arguments of these reasons ?



Tnx.

 

[Ericloewe]

Nothing's really stopping you since 9.3.

Pre 9.3, it would have been a massive waste.

If you're okay with extra spinning rust in your server, an HDD is fine. Probably a better experience than a USB flash drive, too.

 

[gpsguy]

Versions of FreeNAS prior to 9.3 used a fixed size image (~2GB). If, for example, one used an 80GB hard disk, the other 78GB was unusable.

With version 9.3 the boot device was changed from UFS to ZFS. Rather than using a fixed size for the OS, one can take advantage of larger disk sizes. For example when you install an update, the old version is retained. Should you encounter a serious problem, you can roll back to a previous version.

While users are still using flash drives, others might be using small SSD's and SATA DOM's.


Sent from my phone

 

[dlavigne]

One thing to remember is the separation of the OS from the stored data. This usually means that installing to disk results in a wasted disk as it is no longer available for storage.