How To: FreeNAS 7.2

This will be the start of the FreeNAS post on how to install it, tweak it and use futures like Squeezebox Server, rSync and different drive configurations. Please for now refrain from posting in this thread as I would like to keep the posts together. So what are we going to need during this tutorial are the following:

1x Working computer with a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drive
1x Blank CD/DVD/Bur-Ray disc
1x 2GB (minimum) USB Flash Drive (recommended) but you can also use an HDD/SSD

You need to download a FreeNAS 7 ISO from http://sourceforge.net/projects/freenas/files/ You can either download a Nightly Build or a Stable Build. DON'T download the embeded version as I won't be covering that. You can either download the AMD64 or the i386.



IMPORTANT: If you are going to use Squeezebox server you must download the i386 version.

Once you have download your FreeNAS of choice you must burn the ISO that you downloaded to disc using either Windows 7 Built in ISO Burner http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Burn-a-CD-or-DVD-from-an-ISO-file or you can use something like ImgBurn http://www.imgburn.com/.

For people that want to use Squeezebox they will need to download the files listed here http://www.herger.net/slim/detail.php?nr=1026. In total you want to download three files (these files will later be copied to your FreeNAS installation):

• SlimNAS installation script http://www.herger.net/slim/slimnas-install.sh
• SlimNAS distribution http://www.herger.net/slim/slimnas.tgz
• Squeezebox Server http://www.mysqueezebox.com/download where you must select Perl Source Code

Optional Usefull Software to Download

• DeltaCopy http://www.aboutmyip.com/AboutMyXApp/DeltaCopy.jsp is a rSync client/server that runs as a service on your computer. rSync is a very light and fast differential file sync/backup program that you can use to pull files from both other Linux machines as well as Windows machines. This makes your FreeNAS a sentral backup server for all you computers. You can also use rSync to sync to a USB drive attached to the FreeNAS machine
• HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197 for creating a Windows 98 bootable flash drive.
• Windows 98 Boot Files http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=196 the files that you will need to create a boot disk
• wdidle3 for Western Digital Green Drives http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=609&sid=113 this I use to set the head parking time on Western Digital Green drives. You only need to use this if you are going to create somesort of RAID with your FreeNAS.

People that are going to use Western Digital Green drives in a RAID I would suggest that you do the following:

• Install the HP Disk Storage Format Tool
• Extract the Windows 98 files to a location on your hard drive
• Insert your USB Flash Drive into one of the USB prots on your computer
• Run the HP Disk Storage Format Tool where you will select your Device, FAT32 as the file system, select Create a DOS startup disk and select the location of your files (where you extracted the files above) For a Quick Format select the correct option.

• Click the Start button to begin the process
• Copy the wdidle3 file onto your USB flash disk

You now have a bootable USB flash drive. The next step is to disconnect all hard drives (except 1), CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drive from a computer and boot to the USB flash drive. Once the comptuer booted with the USB flash drive you are now ready to set the head parking of the drives to disabled. You will first run wdidle3 to see whether it recognise the current drive and the time it is set to. There after you will run wdidle3 /D to disable this head parking.



IMPORTANT: Only recommended if your are going to do any form of RAID.