TrueNAS and Windows together

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HARDWARE DIY By Ben Myers TrueNAS is installed, so let’s put it to work in the world of Windows. My first article about TrueNAS left everyone on the e
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fisher75, DLivesInTexas

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In the grand ol’ days of Windows Home Server. What an absolute pity and shame that MS killed that wonderful product! I could do full system backups and then daily or hourly incremental backups of all PCs on the home LAN. I could do full system restores by booting with a startup CD that WHS created for that purpose. Then Windows Server Essentials picked up that functionality, at a nearly prohibitive purchase price, but dropped it a few upgrade editions later 😢. Now, I’m using a Synology NAS with capabilities pretty much equivalent to the original WHS.

1 — Can FreeNAS perform the backup and full-system restore operations like the sadly defunct WHS?

2 — Can FreeNAS work transparently with Macs like Synology servers do?

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milleron wrote:

I could do full system backups and then daily or hourly incremental backups of all PCs on the home LAN.

I use Image For Windows, and for home use, one license covers up to 5 PC’s.  I use a “Drive Images” folder on my NAS RAID 10 Array as target for my drive images, and I can easily restore from there as well.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Backup and full system restore?  I think not.

Operate seamlessly with Macs?  Yes.

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Ben Myers wrote:

The tradeoff between a NAS and a Windows server

In my reply to Part 1, I pointed out that I had a spare Windows 10 Pro license (I retired my laptop from work and dual boot) so my NAS OS was already paid for, a Windows 10 Pro license is much cheaper than Windows Server, and for my NAS uses, it fulfills all my needs.  It works on my LAN without any finagling, only needing a common login ID to RDP if I need to.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Yes, a Windows computer with a common Windows license can serve the same function as TrueNAS.  It may not scale up too well to serve lots of computers.

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I don’t have any experience with true Nas myself. But I’ve had some experience recently with Nextcloud, which is similar to TrueNAS, but it has cloud capability as well built into it. It seems to be very popular in Europe, and in  use with legal firms and government entities because it keeps the server located on premise not in the cloud.it’s Linux based. Seems to be a pretty good option, though. It does have some oddities.

It does allow for shared services like drives on premise.

 

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milleron wrote:

Can FreeNAS perform the backup

My bad. I meant to refer to TrueNAS. Perhaps there’s a program called “FreeNAS” with which I conflated the TrueNAS program featured in today’s Ask Woody newsletter. Just to be perfectly clear, I am asking about TrueNAS, not FreeNAS.

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No worries.  TrueNAS is the new name for FreeNAS.

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This is the first time I heard of NextCloud.  Seems to be worth a look.

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Hi

Is there any chance of someone explaining to a not-very-tech-savvy reader what TrueNAS actually does, and why one would use it, in broad, jargon-free, terms?

I’d be grateful if you could. Both articles are so far above my head that I have only skimmed them, and realise that I have no idea what the objective is.

Robb

RobB

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TrueNAS is a remote file storage service that you run yourself, similar to Google Drive or OneDrive.

That advantage of doing it yourself is you have complete control over who sees what and you don’t need an internet connection for it to work.

cheers, Paul

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Robb wrote:

Is there any chance of someone explaining to a not-very-tech-savvy reader what TrueNAS actually does, and why one would use it, in broad, jargon-free, terms?

TrueNAS is an operating system written to create, administer and maintain a RAID (Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks) array.  A RAID array needs at least two disks, but can contain more, depending on what type of array one chooses to use.  Click on the link for more information.

NAS is Network Addressed Storage, and in the case of the article, a Local Area Network (LAN) which is on premises, not somewhere in the cloud on someone else’s server.  The idea for a NAS is storage of lots of data, pictures, music, movies, personal files, downloaded files, etc. in other words data that one wishes to access from time to time but not necessarily daily or hourly.  A NAS frees up storage space on one’s PC.

A NAS is also available via retail through Amazon, etc. where one needs only to plug it into an available USB port and a power supply and its OS is built-in and relatively intuitive, but also with instructions on its operation and care.

@Ben Myers article is about using existing hardware and the free TrueNAS software for a DIY NAS.  I have a DIY NAS using repurposed hardware (and some new HDD’s), but I use Windows 11 as my OS.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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