Once again an off-topic post in the blog. Somehow the strange desire to share computing / IT topics occasionally took over.

Steps to install FreeNAS on internal 256MB USB Flash drive: Enable Debug mode on Acer EasyStore H340 by putting a jumper JP3 on the motherboard Connect VGA cable to Debug 26-pin connector on the motherboard Turn on the system to verify that it works and you can get to the BIOS Setup by pressing on the keyboard. Model number: Aspire easyStore H340, Altos easyStore M2 Name of responsible party: Acer America Corporation Address of responsible party: 333 West San Carlos St. San Jose, CA 95110 U.S.A. Contact person: Acer Representative Tel: 254-298-4000 Fax: 254-298-4147. So, in my small mind the install was successful to the HDD. As for my H340 woes, I install the disk into the system slot (lowest) and reboot the H340 (all other H340 trays are removed). I hear the disk chugging away, the disk LED flashes for a bit, and I wait about 5 mins.

In this video, I resurrect a 10 year old Acer Aspire Easystore H340 Home Server. Retrofitting this headless server with a graphics card, I modify it to run W. Acer Aspire easyStore H340 Service Manual. It allows you to remotely administer your home server from anywhere on the home network. These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation. The Aspire easyStore H is a data storage and digital media content server for your digital home.

Presently, I am rebuilding my IT, trying to catch up with recent technologies.
Years ago, I purchased an Acer Aspire easyStore H340. The neat little device came with 3 1TB HDDs and MS Windows Home Server. The latter, although doing its job, sucked. Finally, I decided to look for alternatives, in particular some with RAID redundancy and modern file-systems, such as ZFS.
The first alternative I found was 'freeNAS'. This product, along side some others, is supposed to run from flash drives or SSDs. This would helps to speed up boot and also preserves valuable HDD slots for volume data devices.
And here it comes, the H340 carries an onboard 256MB flash memory device, which is used for MS WHS recovery.
Early versions of FreeNAS were small enough to fit on this device. However, FreeNAS has evolved and grew somewhat larger.
The good new is, that there is some other product, which originates in FreeNAS and is still small enough... check out NAS4Free.
To install NAS4Free, I figure, there is only one option: equip the headless H340 with a head, i.e. a keyboard and a screen. I choose to obtain a PCIe-1x graphics card and use a USB keyboard for input.
Additionally, JP3 needs to be installed!!! Do not remove the jumper at any later stage... at least my H340 would not boot NAS4Free w/o it. Contrary to JP3, the graphics card can be removed, e.g. to reduce power consumption.
Here comes the tricky bit, the H340 needs some strange tweaks to get it to boot from USB sticks, USB CD drives etc. The CMOS setup is not that straight forward, but, it will get you there. The F12-key will help to select the boot device, if it has been recognized by the system.
To get up my system, I choose to boot the NAS4Free live CD with a USB CD-drive.
The option to install an embedded system w/o swap will install the OS on the H340's internal flash drive, just about... no room to spare, all done with a screen/kb attached.
Here comes the more fancy bit.
In such a setup, you would like to go for the most senior option of storage, which presently seems to be ZFS.
The configuration of ZFS is actually not very well documented, neither at SUN, nor at NAS4Free. So, here's what I did to get ZFS up and running on an H340.

install NAS4Free from a CD using a screen and keyboard attached
reboot after installation has finished, the console should offer a possibility to use DHCP now
note the IP-address given to the H340
using a remote computer, connect to the H340 using a webbrowser
go to the 'disks' menu and 'import' all disks
go to the 'disks format' menu and format all HDDs with ZFS
go to the 'disks zfs pools' menu and create a virtual device (I used single parity raid)
go to the 'disks zfs pools management' menu and create a 'pool'
go to the 'disks zfs datasets' menu and create a dataset using your pool(s)
~~go to the 'disks zfs volumes' menu and create a volume using your dataset(s)~~

The volume(s) should now be ready to use, i.e. assign to services. Under the 'services' menu, one can activate various services such as NFS, CIFS/SMB, AFP etc. Assign those services to a mount point in your volume(s). Acer

Update: It appears not to be necessary to use zfs volumes. It is advisable to mount the dataset. Additionally, it seems a good idea to use the 'dedup' feature, although caution should be taken when removing a dataset, cf. advice given by nas4free. How Install Free Nas On Acer H340

You'll by now be running a rather robust ZFS NAS made of relatively cheap WHS hardware.
I figure it is pretty cool that NAS4Free still fits on the onboard flash drive of the H340.
Once again an off-topic post in the blog. Somehow the strange desire to share computing / IT topics occasionally took over.
Presently, I am rebuilding my IT, trying to catch up with recent technologies.
Years ago, I purchased an Acer Aspire easyStore H340. The neat little device came with 3 1TB HDDs and MS Windows Home Server. The latter, although doing its job, sucked. Finally, I decided to look for alternatives, in particular some with RAID redundancy and modern file-systems, such as ZFS.
The first alternative I found was 'freeNAS'. This product, along side some others, is supposed to run from flash drives or SSDs. This would helps to speed up boot and also preserves valuable HDD slots for volume data devices.
And here it comes, the H340 carries an onboard 256MB flash memory device, which is used for MS WHS recovery.
Early versions of FreeNAS were small enough to fit on this device. However, FreeNAS has evolved and grew somewhat larger.
The good new is, that there is some other product, which originates in FreeNAS and is still small enough... check out NAS4Free.
To install NAS4Free, I figure, there is only one option: equip the headless H340 with a head, i.e. a keyboard and a screen. I choose to obtain a PCIe-1x graphics card and use a USB keyboard for input.
Additionally, JP3 needs to be installed!!! Do not remove the jumper at any later stage... at least my H340 would not boot NAS4Free w/o it. Contrary to JP3, the graphics card can be removed, e.g. to reduce power consumption.
Here comes the tricky bit, the H340 needs some strange tweaks to get it to boot from USB sticks, USB CD drives etc. The CMOS setup is not that straight forward, but, it will get you there. The F12-key will help to select the boot device, if it has been recognized by the system.
To get up my system, I choose to boot the NAS4Free live CD with a USB CD-drive.
The option to install an embedded system w/o swap will install the OS on the H340's internal flash drive, just about... no room to spare, all done with a screen/kb attached.
Here comes the more fancy bit.
In such a setup, you would like to go for the most senior option of storage, which presently seems to be ZFS.

Acer H340 Linux

The configuration of ZFS is actually not very well documented, neither at SUN, nor at NAS4Free. So, here's what I did to get ZFS up and running on an H340.

Acer H340 Specs

install NAS4Free from a CD using a screen and keyboard attached
reboot after installation has finished, the console should offer a possibility to use DHCP now
note the IP-address given to the H340
using a remote computer, connect to the H340 using a webbrowser
go to the 'disks' menu and 'import' all disks
go to the 'disks format' menu and format all HDDs with ZFS
go to the 'disks zfs pools' menu and create a virtual device (I used single parity raid)
go to the 'disks zfs pools management' menu and create a 'pool'
go to the 'disks zfs datasets' menu and create a dataset using your pool(s)
~~go to the 'disks zfs volumes' menu and create a volume using your dataset(s)~~