Drives W/ Existing data

[thereverend]

I have installed FreeNAS and have 5 drives that already have data on them. How do i make sure they do not get deleted
and show up as storage.. I am new to this so any help would be great.. Thanks in advance.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Do those 5 drives use zfs? Where did they come from?

If they are not zfs then you can not use them with freenas.

 

[thereverend]

Do those 5 drives use zfs? Where did they come from?

If they are not zfs then you can not use them with freenas.

They are drives in a USB enclosure. Is it possible to use the drives? not sure what ZFS is ....:(

 

[Redcoat]

ZFS is the underlying file system and volume manager used in FreeNAS.

SweetAndLow asked you where the disks came from? - in what system/OS were they used? The answer will clearly indicate if they are, or more likely, are not, compatible with FreeNAS/ZFS.

Until this is clear, do not connect them to your FreeNAS box.

 

[thereverend]

They were used in a WINDOWS setting, BUT they do not have any OS on them. They were connected via USB 3.0 to windows.

 

[Redcoat]

They were used in a WINDOWS setting,

You cannot use these as FreeNAS data disks. If you want to put this data on your FreeNAS box, hook the disks back up to a Windows machine, create an SMB share on FreeNAS and copy the data over to it from the USB drives.

Search here in the forums for something like "USB drives with FreeNAS" and read up on others' experience with USB drives - the interface is not as robust as SAS/SATA and may lead to poor results.