The installation takes less than five minutes. Select your USB drive from the Choose installation media screen and click OK. (Install ’embedded’ OS on HDD/Flash/USB.)
Once the system boots, select Option 9 (Install/Upgrade to hard drive/flash device, and so on.)įrom the Install & Upgrade Menu, select Option 1.Insert the USB drive into an open USB slot.īoot your system with the FreeNAS CD in the CD/DVD drive.Installing FreeNASĭownload a FreeNAS CD image (ISO) and burn the image to a CD-R disc. Pick up a 256MB USB drive for $10 US at any office supply or discount store, or online. Your hardware should be new enough to support USB, devices since you’ll want to install FreeNAS to a USB drive. If you’re paranoid about disk failure, buy a couple of spares for replacements since disk technology changes often. When you purchase disks for a storage solution, always purchase in pairs so that, at the very least, you’ll be able to create a disk mirror (RAID level 1). 500GB SATA disks cost approximately $50 US, and 750GB SATA disks will set you back only a cool $60 US each.
Serial ATA (SATA) disks, if your system supports them, are inexpensive, fast and recommended for a NAS solution. If your hardware doesn’t support Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID), FreeNAS allows you to create a software RAID configuration. However, I suggest the following hardware list for your NAS system: Pentium III or higher CPU, 512MB RAM, a network interface card (NIC) and as much disk space as you want. Any standard PC system will work for your NAS, as there are no special requirements for the software or storage.
The first thing you’ll need is a system on which to install FreeNAS and to attach disks for storage. A traditional file server* is a type of NAS, but such file servers are relics and are now the subject of mint-julep-assisted front porch reminisces of days gone by. Put simply, a NAS device is a repository for all your documents, spreadsheets, videos, PDFs, backups and anything else you want to store on it. Here’s one DIY project that’s too much of a cost savings - in time and money - to pass up.įreeNAS is a free NAS solution. FreeNAS is one of those surprising projects that not only saves you a huge amount of money but is so simple to use that you’ll wonder why there’s so much mystery surrounding network-attached storage(NAS).Ĭover Your Assets: The NAS in FreeNAS doesn’t stand for Nice and Simple, but it could. For some technologies, you’re better off with a brand name, but for a select few, generic is the only way to go. We’ve all been on the wrong end of a solution that was sold as inexpensive, free, time-saving, energy saving or one that offered a quick return on investment only to end up spending more on that alternative solution than a mainstream one.