FreeNAS is a free and open-source operating system designed for building network-attached storage (NAS) systems. Based on the FreeBSD operating system and the OpenZFS file system, FreeNAS provides robust and reliable storage solutions for home users, small businesses, and enterprises.
In this article, we are going to understand the steps involved in configuring FreeNAS which we will later use to present storage to VMware Environment.
To begin with I would expect that FreeNAS is already installed in your environment and you are already on the Management page of the Appliance.
Pre-requisite
Before proceeding please make sure you have the necessary storage associated with the FreeNAS Server.
Steps Required
- From the left-hand side menu select Storage > Storage Pool.
- Click Add:
- Select Create New Pool and select Create Pool.
- Give it a Name (1)
- Select the Available Storage which you want to add to the Pool (2)
- Click the arrow to add the Storage to the right-hand side. (3)
- Now here you can select the Resiliency Time which you want the storage pool to use to keep your data.
- You can select Stripe ( No Redundancy), Mirror, or Raid Types.
- Once selected you can click Create.
- You will get a warning that all content of the Disk will be erased, which is obvious at this point. You can continue.
- Now you can create a Volume on this Storage pool using the option “Add Zvol”
- Here you can give your Volume a Name and make any changes that you think is needed for your Volume like enabling Deduplication.
- Now this Volume can be used either as a Share or using ISCSI as a Target to Present to Initiators.
