Server; Finally seeing the large drive

Got Win 7 in today. Loaded Win XP again. Then installed the Win 7 upgrade.

Now I see the drive array. Formatting it now and then will share it.

Finally good news w/ this  project.

Server build update

Feeling totally defeated by the Unix installation.

I ordered a copy of Windows 7 Professional. I'm waiting for it to come in.

I feel really good about the hardware build. The equipment has been running for a couple of weeks with the only down time happening when we had a power failure when the tornadoes move through our area a week ago.

As soon as I get the Windows license in, I'll pop that on the computer and will give another update.

Home server continued

Got the FreeNAS installed on the computer.

The OS is building the drive array. Had been running for 2 hours and reports that it's completed 14.48%.

Kill me now!

Windows limitation

So I ran into a Windows XP limitation when I tried to get the OS to see the drive array. XP Pro supports Raid, but has a drive limit of 2 TB according to the array controller manufacturer.

I deleted Windows and installed FreeNAS on the boot drive. I'm in the middle of configuring it now.

Wish me luck. I'm going to need it because I'm not used to Unix.

Building a home server

I have been wanting to build a home server to house all my media files that have accumulated over the years.

I have an old PC that I no longer use that had plenty of drive bays. Well, how hard could it be? Right?

Here is the old pc. 

 Lots of wires in this thing. The power supply isn't very old, but I decided to replace the hard drive that will house the OS. 

The chassis is one of the no screws needed models. Should make for quick work.

 My SATA Raid 5 controller. I'm going to hang 4, 2 TB drives off this.

 Bought bare drives so had to buy SATA cables. Since the chassis is old, I also had to get power converter cables.

 5 Seagate Green drives. OS is 500 GB and the rest are 2 TB.

 Drives installed in the chassis. 

 SATA & Power Cables connected to drives. 

 A cold beverage for the technician.

 I had Windows XP Pro from the previous build. Pro supports Raid, so why not use it. 

 The Raid setup screen. 

Windows installed and there is a utility to format the drives. 

This was pretty easy.

You may be getting tired of pictures

We went out on a boat tour on Tuesday, early afternoon. Thought I'd share some pictures.