I have a need to bring data made on a windows box and insert them into my unRAID array.

 

I am wondering if the following are possible:

 

1. Format a disk in windows (using the various GPL RFS drivers about), insert data into it and then have unRAID recognise it

 

or

 

2. Format a drive in unRAID and insert it into a windows box

 

The drive would be connectd to windows using USB or eSATA

 

Making the windows box linux is not an option. Running Vmware or the like is possible but as a last resort as its not the best of boxes.

 

Any ideas?

Insert data into unRAID temporarily via manual mount or be brought into the parity protected array?

 

In any case I would probably format the disk in linux and then mount it in Windows.

I have a need to bring data made on a windows box and insert them into my unRAID array.

 

I am wondering if the following are possible:

 

1. Format a disk in windows (using the various GPL RFS drivers about), insert data into it and then have unRAID recognise it

 

or

 

2. Format a drive in unRAID and insert it into a windows box

 

The drive would be connectd to windows using USB or eSATA

 

Making the windows box linux is not an option. Running Vmware or the like is possible but as a last resort as its not the best of boxes.

 

Any ideas?

unRAID will recognize an NTFS drive.  You will need to type a few commands to mount it to get to the files, but it is actually pretty easy if you use unMENU as it can handle the process with a few key-clicks.

 

In fact, one user put unmenu on a USB spare flash drive along with the nornal unRAID stuff and then used it to boot his old PC.  He then mounted and shared all the NTFS drives on his LAN.  (he did it to proove his old motherboard was compatible, but it did something like you are asking.)

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=UnMENU_screen_shots#Evaluate_Hardware

 

Other points,

As far as I know, there is no read/write driver for windows for reiserfs.  There is a read-only driver. In an emergency, you can read all your files, but you cannot write to it directly from a windows box.  (interestingly enough I can't remember anybody needing to do this... but it is possible)

 

VMware will not help... unless you are booting up a linux version... and you could as easily boot off of the USB port on the older PC.

 

I've often plugged an NTFS formatted drive in an external USB enclosure onto my unRAID server.  It works just fine.

 

The wiki" has some commands if you want to type them in, 

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, as I said, use unMENU.

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

 

Here you can see an NTFS drive plugged in via USB in my array.

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

 

 

 

You need to add option #3 ... format it NTFS in Windows, then move the drive to unRAID and copy.  That's what I'd do.

 

Of course, if you already have this data in Windows, why not take that drive, install it in unRAID, and copy, then move it back to the Windows box?

How much data are you talking about.  Why not just copy it over the net?

Id rather stick to reiser only disks to save copy/paste/move actions if possible. I'm quite happy with the trivial mount a disk and copy approach I should have been clearer that i was wondering if there is a way to stay natively RFS.

 

 

has anyone any direct experience with unRAID disks in windows?

 

Im not sure how much data not that much say about 1TB a month.

 

Id rather stick to reiser only disks to save copy/paste/move actions if possible. I'm quite happy with the trivial mount a disk and copy approach I should have been clearer that i was wondering if there is a way to stay natively RFS.

 

 

has anyone any direct experience with unRAID disks in windows?

 

Im not sure how much data not that much say about 1TB a month.

 

As I said, there is no way to write to a reiserfs drive installed in a windows box.  You can read one, so if your data transfer is to the windows PC from the reiserfs drive, you are set. 

 

Otherwise, you can either use FAT or FAT32,  or NTFS.  Windows can read and write those (usually) and so can Linux.

 

Joe L.

Looks like vmware is my only option to make it writable then.

 

There were a few google links saying write access to RFS but they were red herrings. Seems like RFS is one of the few popular file systems that isnt cross platform. Thats likely something worth pondering later.

 

Can I just format a disk the normal way (obviously with RFS) and inset into unRAID when its full or is their some other magic?

Can I just format a disk the normal way (obviously with RFS) and inset into unRAID when its full or is their some other magic?

Are you going to be adding your "new disk" to the protected array, or are you just going to copy files from it to the protected disks once you have it attached to the unRAID server?

 

If you are just going to move files from it to the disks in the protected array, the way you partition and format the drive doesn't matter.

 

If you intend to attach the drive, assign it to a slot in your array, and calculate parity on it, the PARTITIONING and FORMAT both matter.

You can use the preclear_disk.sh script to set the partition up correctly, once cleared, it will have the first partition set up for you.  (It must have only 1 partition and it must start on the second track and use the entire drive. The preclear script does it exactly as required.) You can then use the normal mkreiserfs command to create a file-system on the first partition.

Try coLinux for RFS access under Windows? Set up properly, coLinux could mount a folder on your Windows drive and copy data to a RFS drive, without ever leaving Windows. I don't think running coLinux uses as much CPU as a full out VMWare setup.

 

Or are you wanting to have direct access to the drive from Windows, with no intermediate storage to be copied over?

 

I've never read this article before, but a search on "coLinux reiser" turned up this link, which seems very relevant:

http://polishlinux.org/linux/ext3-reiserfs-xfs-in-windows-thanks-to-colinux/

 

It goes a step further, sharing the RFS drive via Samba inside colinux so Windows can write to it directly. You probably need to follow Joe's guidelines for initially partitioning and formatting the drive though. Also, they suggest using Ubuntu in coLinux, but I've successfully installed Slackware too. And any lightweight linux could work provided you can get RFS and Samba in there.