hi, i've thought of an idea that probalby no doubt has already been mentioned, but if it hasn't here it goes...

 

i've just filled a 120g hdd with stuff and my brother has done the same, were actually meeting up tomororw and are going to swap drives/data.

 

what would be good is if we could connect them directly to the unraid server and add them as like a temp drive that has a fat/ntfs file system on it thats just for moving data onto the server, or off.

 

would save connecting it to a windows box and transfering it though the network, can just connect it directly and use, mc or whatever to copy the files off drive temp to drive permanent

Have you tried UnMENU yet?  It should allow you to do what you want.  Once mounted, use MC.

 

Or you can do it manually, see this HowTo.

 

Other HowTo's may also be helpful.

Lots of way to do what you request:

 

Two in the wiki here: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=How-To%27s

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Copy_files_from_a_NTFS_drive

or here

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Mounting_an_external_USB_drive_having_an_existing_NTFS_file_system_in_READ/WRITE_mode_to_transport_files_from/to_unRaid_server

 

Or, perhaps easier, use unmenu, then just use its disk management page to mount the drive for the copy.  If you wish, you can even share the external drive on your LAN.  As you said, it is not protected, but you can copy its contents easily.

 

Find it described here: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=UnRAID_Add_Ons#UnMENU

 

If you look at the screen shot of unmenu illustrated in the link below, you will see I have a NTFS usb drive mounted to access its files:

http://i35.tinypic.com/1o87xw.jpg

 

Joe L.

(I'm not as fast in responding this early in the morning, before I have my first cup of coffee... Rob beat me to it)

thanks guys, never knew about unmenu, i'll def have to check it out