How to Build a NAS Device With an Old PC and FreeNAS Preparing Disks and Creating Shares in FreeNAS Joseph Moran
Preparing Disks and Creating Shares in FreeNAS
There are three basic steps to preparing a disk for use with FreeNAS: identifying it, formatting it and mounting it. Start by going to the Disks menu, selecting Management, and clicking the plus sign button. From the Disk pull-down menu — which will list all disks connected to the system) select one that you want to use, click the Add button and then click Apply changes.
Now go to Disks | Format, select the disk you just added, and click the Format Disk button. (As you'll be warned, this will erase the contents of the disk.) Then go to Disks | Mount Point, click the plus button, specify the drive, type a volume name into the Name field, then click Add. Finally, click the Add Changes when it appears.
Now we need to activate file services and set up a share. Head over to the Services menu and choose CIFS/SMB (this is the protocol used by Windows Networking, a.k.a. Network Neighborhood/Places). Put a check in the Enable box in the upper right and give your server a name in the NetBIOSName field. (You can also change the Workgroup name from the default of WORKGROUP if you use something else.)
Click the Save and Restart button, and then return to the top of the page and click the Shares tab. To create a share, click the plus button, enter a share name and description into the Name and Comment fields, respectively, then point to your newly created volume in the Path field (you can use the ellipse button to browse for it). Click Add and then Apply changes, and you're done.
You can make sure your FreeNAS share is visible from an Windows system by or browsing for it within Network Places. (If your system has a software firewall and you can't reach the FreeNAS system, you may need to configure it to allow Windows File and Printer Sharing.)
Wait, There's More
We've only covered a basic configuration of FreeNAS here, but there's a lot more you can do with it. For starters, you can use it to share out multiple drives, including CD or DVDs. Like most commercial NAS products, FreeNAS will let you set up user accounts and rights, or you can have it authenticate users from an existing Windows domain (2000/2003 Active Directory only).
You can also enable other network services, including UPnP, FTP, NFS (for Linux), or AFP (for older Macs) and set up encrypted volumes or one using (software-based) RAID 0, 1, or 5. For more information on these and other FreeNAS features consult the product manual, which is surprisingly useful (it's available in PDF format from the download page).
Using FreeNAS to build your own NAS server won't necessarily make sense for everyone. As you can see, it requires a bit more configuration effort than a commercial NAS product, so you have to have the time and inclination to play with it and tweak it to your needs.
It's also worth nothing that since a PCs is usually much larger than a typical NAS device, it may be harder to tuck a FreeNAS system away somewhere if space is tight. Also, any PC-based NAS is likely to be nosier and consume more power than than a ready-made NAS (worth keeping in mind considering your NAS device will probably need to run 24/7).
But if you've got more time, space, and equipment than you do cash, FreeNAS is an excellent way to set up effective and inexpensive network storage.
Joe Moran is a regular contributor to PracticallyNetworked.
