Noob needs help with NAS

[Yasin40]

Hi guys

I'm a complete noob with networking and NASs and such and I really need your help.

I have an old computer with 2gb ram (can't upgrade) and a core2duo e6600

My main computer has a 1tb and a 3tb hdd in it alongside a boot ssd, but I really hate the noise the hard drives are making, so I want to make it so that I can access my HDDs via ethernet on that old PC.

I have windows 7 32 bit on it right now,but I can't seem to get fileshare to work from that PC to my main rig. It won't give me access.

I put FreeNas on a usb drive and tried to boot off that so I can install it, but the old PC just won't do it. Just to make sure, I've tested the boot drive on my main rig and it worked just fine, so I guess that's not going to work.

If someone here could help me configure that PC as a nas I would be very grateful, but as I already said, I am a complete noob and I don't know what to do.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Radium_Angel]

16 minutes ago, Yasin40 said:

noob

 

16 minutes ago, Yasin40 said:

FreeNas

These two things don't really go together.

16 minutes ago, Yasin40 said:

2gb ram (can't upgrade) and a core2duo e6600

Those may not meet the minimum system requirements of FreeNAS

https://www.engadget.com/2012/02/01/how-to-set-up-a-home-file-server-using-freenas/

 

But if you really want to try, use this:

https://www.tecmint.com/installation-of-freenas/

 

[Windows7ge]

With specs that low you're going to want to roll with a very light-weight distribution of Linux or something like FreeBSD (what FreeNAS is based off of).

 

I wrote a guide on setting up Ubuntu server but the recommendation is 4GB of RAM. It may work with 2GB but you could probably pickup a little more for really cheap or find a lighter distro of Debian. Otherwise the instructions should be near identical.

 

[Yasin40]

1 hour ago, Radium_Angel said:

 

These two things don't really go together.

Those may not meet the minimum system requirements of FreeNAS

https://www.engadget.com/2012/02/01/how-to-set-up-a-home-file-server-using-freenas/

 

But if you really want to try, use this:

https://www.tecmint.com/installation-of-freenas/

 

I managed to set up FreeNas via CD and put it on a 8gb usb stick.

I connected the 3tb and 1tb hdds from my main rig to the FreeNas PC. What do I do now?
I have LOTS of stuff on both drives. I'm afraid they'll get wiped if I do something wrong. It says that if I create a new pool the disks will be wiped.

What should I do? I don't want to lose all my stuff

[Radium_Angel]

1 minute ago, Yasin40 said:

I don't want to lose all my stuff

Why don't you have backups?

[Yasin40]

Just now, Radium_Angel said:

Why don't you have backups?

I only have those 2 drives as my mass storage. I just want to be able to access the data that's on them via network so I don't have to hear the HDD noise in my desktop. Is FreeNas not a good way to do this?

[Windows7ge]

18 minutes ago, Yasin40 said:

I only have those 2 drives as my mass storage. I just want to be able to access the data that's on them via network so I don't have to hear the HDD noise in my desktop. Is FreeNas not a good way to do this?

FreeNAS uses ZFS. Windows uses (usually) NTFS. You can import the data on a NTFS volue to a ZFS pool but you cannot directly mount and use a NTFS volume as a pool. You'll need a new drive to put all the data on or a backup to where you can restore the data after setting up the pools.

[Yasin40]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

FreeNAS uses ZFS. Windows uses (usually) NTFS. You can import the data on a NTFS volue to a ZFS pool but you cannot directly mount and use a NTFS volume as a pool. You'll need a new drive to put all the data on or a backup to where you can restore the data after setting up the pools.

So I would another 1 and 3tb hdd?
That sounds rather inconvenient

Would it be better for my usecase to just install linux on a different smaller hard drive and share the 1 and 3tb hdd as network folders?

[Windows7ge]

1 minute ago, Yasin40 said:

So I would another 1 and 3tb hdd?
That sounds rather inconvenient

Would it be better for my usecase to just install linux on a different smaller hard drive and share the 1 and 3tb hdd as network folders?

No. You could use one bigger hdd just to hold all the data together. Use folders or datasets to organize it all.

 

That's the standard when switching entire platforms. There are some distros that allow the read and writing of NTFS volumes but I wouldn't trust them with everything without proper backups. Better to switch over to ZFS or EXT4 or EXT3.

[Killing-time-itself]

In your case I would pickup another hdd to backup the data and later add to the pool when needed for expansion in the future

[Kamvas]

If you dont want to lose your data in both drives why dont you make them both shared in you old computer and leave that computer in a place that you wont hear it? and dont try to make your life miserable... xD

[Salacious B Crum]

2 hours ago, Kamvas said:

If you dont want to lose your data in both drives why dont you make them both shared in you old computer and leave that computer in a place that you wont hear it? and dont try to make your life miserable...

I thought FreeNAS needed 1 gig of ram per TB of storage, no? I think you would be way better off shucking a 4TB or 8TB external drive (Cheaper per TB) and running something lightweight like open media vault

[Kamvas]

9 hours ago, mrbilky said:

I thought FreeNAS needed 1 gig of ram per TB of storage, no? I think you would be way better off shucking a 4TB or 8TB external drive (Cheaper per TB) and running something lightweight like open media vault

i meant to use the old pc with windows and make those drives as shared and use them via local network... so he will avoid buying a new hdd to backup up all of his data and then config a freenas or whatever only for those 2 drives.... lol... and finally if he wants to experiment with those OS he can do it with some used hdds and make them work before do anything critical and lose his files...

[Overloke]

FreeNAS says that it requires a 64-bit system and a minimum of 8GB of RAM...unless you're running like version 9.4 or whatever the last one that supported 32-bit was.

 

What specifically is the problem you're experiencing with the Windows 7 machine, and trying to get filesharing to work. Is your plan to transplant the 1TB and 3TB drives from your main machine into the Windows 7 machine? Do both machines have filesharing enabled? Are they both set to a 'private' network? Can you ping one from the other using CMD or something?

 

Honestly, your best bet in the short term is to get an external HDD that's like 4TB or so, and just manually copy the data across, so at least you have an onsite, recent backup. As far as I'm aware, you can't set up the disks in FreeNAS without wiping the drives, that's just how it be.