Question about freenas and other applications

[AoGeko]

Hey guys its me again,

 

So here is the question today. I just built a PC based NAS, but i have not installed freeNAS yet or anything. 

 

1. Is it possible to run windows based applications off of freeNAS?
2. Can I run Windows 7 for windows based applications and freeNAS for data storage at the same time?
3. I hear that I need to have a single drive for freeNAS such as a usb or sd card. Is it possible to make a separate partition on my SSD for about 10gb for freeNAS?

[Jarsky]

1. No, FreeNAS is a BSD Distribution (Unix kernel)

2. Not on the same physical computer. You could run a hypervisor to virtualise the system, but its not recommended and not supported to run FreeNAS under virtualization

3. You can install FreeNAS to an SSD just fine - but you couldn't use that SSD for any array functions within FreeNAS.

 

It sounds like when you say PC based NAS, you mean your primary PC - with drives? You cannot run both OS at the same time - FreeNAS can do some weird stuff under virtualization

[AoGeko]

34 minutes ago, Jarsky said:

It sounds like when you say PC based NAS, you mean your primary PC - with drives? You cannot run both OS at the same time - FreeNAS can do some weird stuff under virtualization

So basically I want to use the system primarily for data storage. And also i want to run windows based apps for my business that i wont be using physically. its just a timeclock essentially

[Jarsky]

The only way to do that with Linux would be if those Windows apps work under WINE - you'd have to check the individual applications, as WINE doesnt work for all apps, and different apps often need different versions of WINE to work under.

 

You may be better using a Windows 10 / Windows Server 2012R2 based OS if you want to run win32 applications. You can build a reliable and solid array with Storage Spaces using the ReFS file system.