FreeNAS help

martward · January 13, 2016

Hi everyone,

I'm thinking of building a NAS using FreeNAS. Since I didn't want to buy components and then kinda see how it works along the way, I installed FreeNAS in a virtualmachine and I am now trying to set it up as I would like it.

I want to have six HDD's (to begin with) and set them up as follows:

- One pool with 4 HDD's divided over two vdevs, each vdev has two HDD's in mirrored mode

- One pool with 2 HDD's in one vdev, also in mirrored mode.

The second pool will be used as an offsite backup for a server at work, while the first pool will be for storing my own data which I want to be able to access from outside my network eventually.

I have now set up FreeNAS in the virtual machine with the first pool, which consists of two groups of two HDD's in mirrored mode and I now have a question and a problem.

My question is whether these groups (or vdevs) are automatically in raid 0.

My problem is that I can see the network share I created, I can access it, but I can't write anything to it. I entered the root username and password when I opened it in the file explorer but it says I have no permissions to write.

I have created a group (Home) and a user which is now part of that group and part of the wheel group (which I think is something like root?) and the home directory for this user is in the CIFS share that I created. As root I still don't have permission to write to this directory, and I don't know how to change users in the file explorer of Windows .

If any of you can answer my question and/or tell me how to write data to my virtual NAS that would be awesome.

Thanks

unijab · January 14, 2016

FreeNAS does not recommend running it as a VM other than for testing.

braneopbru · January 14, 2016

Hi everyone,

I'm thinking of building a NAS using FreeNAS. Since I didn't want to buy components and then kinda see how it works along the way, I installed FreeNAS in a virtualmachine and I am now trying to set it up as I would like it.

I want to have six HDD's (to begin with) and set them up as follows:

- One pool with 4 HDD's divided over two vdevs, each vdev has two HDD's in mirrored mode

- One pool with 2 HDD's in one vdev, also in mirrored mode.

The second pool will be used as an offsite backup for a server at work, while the first pool will be for storing my own data which I want to be able to access from outside my network eventually.

I have now set up FreeNAS in the virtual machine with the first pool, which consists of two groups of two HDD's in mirrored mode and I now have a question and a problem.

My question is whether these groups (or vdevs) are automatically in raid 0.

My problem is that I can see the network share I created, I can access it, but I can't write anything to it. I entered the root username and password when I opened it in the file explorer but it says I have no permissions to write.

I have created a group (Home) and a user which is now part of that group and part of the wheel group (which I think is something like root?) and the home directory for this user is in the CIFS share that I created. As root I still don't have permission to write to this directory, and I don't know how to change users in the file explorer of Windows .

If any of you can answer my question and/or tell me how to write data to my virtual NAS that would be awesome.

Thanks

As was mentioned, don't run FreeNas as VM. Two separate vdev will not be stripped automatically, or at all. You'll want to create a single vdev with all four drives and set it up as RAID10. FreeNAS permissions are a pain in the ass to set properly if you're just starting out. Most people who are new at it and can't figure it out just end up defaulting to opening everything up for anyone to write without any permissions at all. RTFM

There quite a few people on here that use FreeNAS (me being one of them) and a few who know it well (me not being one of them). But I would suggest you take your FreeNAS questions over to the FreeNAS forums. A lot of really smart people on there - just make sure you read the stickies before posting questions, lest you unleash the wrath of the neckbeards.

martward · January 14, 2016

FreeNAS does not recommend running it as a VM other than for testing.

I am testing. I just want to kow how to set it up when I have the components to build the real thing.

As was mentioned, don't run FreeNas as VM. Two separate vdev will not be stripped automatically, or at all. You'll want to create a single vdev with all four drives and set it up as RAID10. FreeNAS permissions are a pain in the ass to set properly if you're just starting out. Most people who are new at it and can't figure it out just end up defaulting to opening everything up for anyone to write without any permissions at all. RTFM

There quite a few people on here that use FreeNAS (me being one of them) and a few who know it well (me not being one of them). But I would suggest you take your FreeNAS questions over to the FreeNAS forums. A lot of really smart people on there - just make sure you read the stickies before posting questions, lest you unleash the wrath of the neckbeards.

But vdevs cannot be extended right. That is why I should make multiple vdevs with mirrored disks, so I can extend it later on (at least that is what I've read). I will try the FreeNAS forums, thanks .

braneopbru · January 14, 2016

I am testing. I just want to kow how to set it up when I have the components to build the real thing.

But vdevs cannot be extended right. That is why I should make multiple vdevs with mirrored disks, so I can extend it later on (at least that is what I've read). I will try the FreeNAS forums, thanks .

Extending is weird and very specific. The easiest way to grow a pool is by swapping out the individual drives one at a time with larger drives. Once all drives have been replaced with a larger size, the pool will auto grow to the new size.

It's a lot more complicated than that, but the manual and the forums will explain it better than I can.