You can find my FreeNAS posts/Tutorials here:
- FreeNAS – switching back. About my decision to move back to FreeNAS from Windows Home Server.
- FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part One – Installation – installing the FreeNAS server onto a PC. (this post)
- FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Two – Configuration – configuring FreeNAS and Windows File Sharing.
- FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Three – Upgrading – Upgrading your FreeNAS Server.
- Using Microsoft SyncToy 2 with FreeNAS – Automating your backups – for free.
- FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part Five – XBOX 360 – Using FreeNAS with your XBOX 360
- FreeNAS Tutorial for Windows Users – Part 6 – Adding another drive
1. Download the most recent FreeNAS from this page.
2. Burn the ISO image to a CDROM.
3. Put the CDROM in the machine you will use as the file server. (Note – all data on the drive(s) in this machine will be destroyed. Make sure you don’t need any of it before proceeding!)
4. Reboot the computer and boot from the CDROM.
5. Allow the CD to load until you see the splash screen (below).
6. Press Enter
| 7. Assuming there is no data on the hard drives, select option 9 (Install/Upgrade) from the Console Setup Menu |  |
| 8. From the install menu, select option #3 (Install ‘full’ release on hard drive) |  |
| 9. The system will now show you the names of the CDROM drive(s) in your system. Enter in the CDROM name at the prompt (in the image below this is “acd0″. |  |
| 10. The system will now show you the name(s) of the hard disk(s) in your system. In the example below there is only one drive, named “ad0″. Type the name in at the prompt and press enter. |  |
11. At the prompt for “size of the OS partition” type 64 and press enter.
The system will be installed and a final prompt (below) tells you not to format the data partition. Since we had only one hard drive in the system it was formatted as part of the system installation.
| 12. Simply press enter and you will return to the Install Menu |  |
13. Press 7 to return to the main menu.
14. Remove the CDROM and press 7 to reboot the system.
15. Once the system is completely rebooted you will see the FreeNAS splash screen- press enter.
| 16. Note the IP Address assigned to your server. It is displayed on the top of the screen. You will need this IP Address to complete Part Two (Configuration) |  |
17. Congratulations! You have installed FreeNAS! In part two of this series we’ll configure FreeNAS with the Web Interface.
You are now finished with the Installation and everything else is done from a Web Browser on another machine. You can shut off the monitor on the FreeNAS server to save some power. We won’t have to physically touch this machine again.
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FreeNAS is installed on it’s own machine. But then any other computer/Operating System can use the shares.
hoi all,
can i use or install freeNAS on windows server 2003, to make it as a target for my clustersystem?
rgds,
H.jordan
I’m thinking about building a FreeNas machine but I’m undecided. I would use it as a media server and to do Windows and data backups. I could easily accomplish this by adding an extra hard drive or two to one of my Windows PCs and sharing them on the network. Can you tell me some of the advantages of setting up a FreeNas server as opposed to adding hard drives to your Windows PC and sharing them? I’m guessing that the server might be more efficient and use less power because it wouldn’t be running a bunch of programs and processes like a PC would. My main concern is that backing up my Windows drive or encoding video to a hard drive on the server over a 100Mbps connection would take much longer than backing up Windows or encoding video to a second hard drive installed on my Windows PC. Any thoughts or comments on the advantages of setting up a FreeNas server would be appreciated.
@Paul PW. I think what you want to do for the PS3 is fine – and I think the easiest solution for the TiVo is to use the TiVo Desktop application on one of your Windows PCs and point TiVo Desktop to a shared drive on FreeNAS.
Hopefully this accomplishes what you want.
Rob
I want to use FreeNAS as a file server for PCs, but also as a media server for both PS3 & TiVo. PS3 is uPnP DLNA compliant so should be fine. TiVo would require running a separate server I think: pyTiVo or Galleon or tyshow. Is a FreeNAS box capable of running other such software or am I barking up the wrong tree??
Sorry this is OT, but I can’t find an answer elsewhere and thought you might know.
Thanks!
I reformatted this post (as well as the second part) using embedded tables. I just couldn’t get the images to line up correctly any other way.