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freeStor firmware Release Notes Ver 2.2
for
firmware version 1.4
July 2007
Contents
FREESTOR FIRMWARE RELEASE NOTES VER 2.2 1
NEW FEATURES AND ENHANCEMENTS 3
Increase in NAS storage capacity 3
Flexible storage capacity 3
Shared folder capacity reallocation 3
Shared folder quota management 3
Daylight saving time 3
ADDITIONAL BENEFITS 4
INFORMATION AND RESTRICTIONS 4
Active Directory Server 4
Firmware Upgrades 5
Miscellaneous 5
Network Access Server (NAS) 6
Remote Boot 6
DiskSafe Express 6
HOW TO UPDATE THE FIRMWARE TO V1.4 7
Backup your existing data 7
Steps of firmware update 7
CONTACT US 10
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Copyright © 2004 - 2007 FREEDOM9 Inc. All Rights Reserved. FREEDOM9 is either registered trademarks or trademarks
of FREEDOM9, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Windows is
a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
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New Features and Enhancements
Increase in NAS storage capacity
The storage system supports up to four 3.5" SATA-I hard disks, with an increase in
capacity. This version increases the NAS capacity to more than two terabytes.
Support up to 4TB storage space: The unit with firmware 1.4 can support up to 4x
1.0TB hard drives.
Flexible storage capacity
The storage system supports expansion on a per folder basis. Shared folders can now
be expanded on an individual folder basis.
The “Home” (User Home Folder) is now an isolated NAS share. In previous versions
the “homes” folder was one large NAS share, which included public and other share
folders. The default size is 200MB and is expandable to two terabytes.
Shared folder capacity reallocation
The storage system supports reuse of shared folder storage upon deletion of the
shared folder. Storage capacity allocated for the deleted folder is released to a “free”
pool and can be reallocated.
Shared folder quota management
Each shared folder will sit on a single NAS resource, capacity in your storage system is
divided into partitions. Including one for a shared public folder, one for user home
folders and one for backups. All home folders will share a single unique NAS Resource.
All shared folders, including home folders can be manually grown to a maximum size
of 2TB. Shared folders can not be shrunk and deletion of a shared folder will free its
space to total storage capacity which can be used by other shared folders or backups.
The public folder cannot be deleted or its capacity reclaimed.
Please note: The maximum size of a single shared folder or a backup is still 2TB.
Daylight saving time
The latest daylight saving time rule (Feb, 2007) is included in the v1.4 firmware. As
regular Linux system, the time is adjusted automatically and DST is always on. If the
daylight saving time rule is changed, a new v1.4 firmware is required.
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Additional Benefits
Built-in data protection — In addition to a linear disk configuration in which all the
disks are treated as independent entities, the storage system supports several
different types of RAIDs (redundant arrays of independent disks). This means that you
can take advantage of the build-in data protection and data duplication offered by
advanced RAID levels. If your storage system has multiple hard disks and one fails,
you won’t lose important data.
Simple administration — You can run the browser-based management interface
from any computer in your network, and its informative wizards and configuration
pages will help you accomplish your tasks quickly and easily.
Status at a glance — The Home page of the management interface lets you quickly
determine how much space is being used and who’s currently connected.
Support for multiple platforms — Whether the computers in your network run
Windows, Mac OS X or other Mac operating systems, or Linux, you can set up file
sharing for each of them.
Security — Only authorized users can access the shared folders on your storage
system. You can also control whether the user can only view the information in the
shared folders or also add, modify, or delete files there.
Fast performance — With its gigabit Ethernet support, the storage system provides
fast access to the data you need, when you need it.
USB support — Additional USB storage devices may be attached to the USB ports.
Client backup — Provides reliable data protection and rapid data recovery in case of
a system crash or hard drive failure.
Active Directory support — Integrates with an Active Directory server and
authenticates all Windows users who try to connect to the shared folders. The
maximum AD user support is 256 AD user which is the same as v1.2.
Information and Restrictions
Active Directory Server
Active Directory built-in group accounts that are part of the Active Directory server's
"Built-in" groups cannot access assigned shared folders even if they are imported into
the freeStor 4020 System and are granted the proper access rights.
Active Directory authentication mode does not automatically include a guest account.
If your storage system is configured to use Active Directory Authentication Mode
without a guest account created in the Active Directory server, the Storage System
Console may not be able to list shared folders. Windows will attempt to use the user’s
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Windows login account, stored user accounts, and/or other known user accounts that
have been used to log in to the freeStor 4020 Storage System. If successful, the
Storage System Console will be able to see shared folders even if there is no guest
account created in the Active Directory. If unsuccessful, you will need to have the
Active Directory administrator create a guest account (with password of guest) on the
Active Directory server in order for the Storage System Console to be able to list the
shared folders.
The Web User Interface (UI) displays all users/groups synchronized from the Active
Directory server, regardless if the user account is hidden, disabled, built-in account,
etc.
If the freeStor 4020 Storage System and Windows domain controller are both
rebooted, and the freeStor 4020 Express Storage System is started before the domain
controller comes up, you will need to shutdown and restart the freeStor 4020 Storage
System in order to map to NAS Windows shares.
By design, the “homes” folder space will be deleted when changing to AD mode.
Once the Organizational Unit (OU) selection is made when joining an Active Directory
domain, it is not that easy to change. Therefore, it is recommended that you select the
root of all the Organization Units when joining an Active Directory domain in order to
maintain a list of every user in each OU. If you need to change the Organization Unit,
you can switch to local mode and then rejoin the domain. However, once you rejoin
the domain, the user rights to the shares will need to be set up again.
“ftp" and "anonymous" are reserved for internal use. It is recommended that you do
not create user accounts with these names in the Active Directory server.
If your freeStor 4020 Storage System has joined an Active Directory domain and the
account password used to synchronize has been changed in the Active Directory,
attempts to synchronize will fail. Perform the following steps to update the password:
Login to the freeStor 4020 Storage System
Go to Users -> Active Directory Properties
Manually update the password for the synchronization account
Firmware Upgrades
Systems running version 1.0 to version 1.3 will not be able to upgrade the firmware to
version 1.4 using the Advanced->Firmware feature.
Miscellaneous
The size of the root file system has been increased from 128MB to 256MB.
The freeStor 4020 supports SATA-1 drives. If you add an additional hard drive that is
SATA-2, you must set a jumper on the back of the hard drive to address backward
compatibility. Refer to the documentation that came with the hard drive for
information on the specific jumper setting.
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Performance issues might occur for backup and/or restore jobs if the Web user
interface for the storage system is accessed while backup and/or restore jobs are
running.
If the freeStor 4020 appliance and Windows domain controller are both rebooted, and
the freeStor 4020 appliance is started before the domain controller comes up, you will
need to shutdown and restart the freeStor 4020 appliance in order to map to NAS
Windows shares.
Network Access Server (NAS)
The system may take a long time to boot up if you have several NAS shares or large
NAS shares (over 1 TB). Since every NAS disk file system must be checked and
mounted, the larger the file system or the more the NAS disks, the longer the check
time. The system status LED blinks green until the system boot up completes and then
turns solid green indicating the system has successfully started.
Remote Boot
If you plan to remotely boot from a backup on the storage system, it is recommended
that you select the IP address of the first port. If the DHCP server option is enabled on
your storage system, you can remotely boot only from the first port. If this option is
disabled and you’re using a separate DHCP server, you can remotely boot from either
port.
DiskSafe Express
1. DiskSafe Express requires the Intelligent Management Agent (IMA), which is installed
automatically. IMA requires that a C: partition exists on the machine where DiskSafe
Express will be installed.
2. Currently, the IMA module of DiskSafe Express cannot display disks larger than
2,199,023,255,040 bytes (slightly less than 2 TB). Therefore, you cannot protect a
disk or its partitions if the disk size is greater than this size.
3. If you upgrade to DiskSafe Express v1.1, you must repair the connection, using Repair
Connection, from disks/partitions that were protected using DiskSafe Express v1.0.
4. If you create a partition without assigning a drive letter to it, the name of the partition
will not display correctly when viewing the available disk list. For example, if the third
partition on a disk (Disk 0, Partition 3) has the volume label "Production" but does not
have a drive letter associated with it, the DiskSafe Express user interface will only
display the partition's location on the disk (Disk 0, Partition 3).
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How to update the firmware to v1.4
Backup your existing data
If you are upgrading from previous firmware release, due to the changes made, the
upgrade to v1.4 can’t be done directly through Advanced->Firmware page because
there are changes made in kernel, FS drivers and root file system (256MB) in the v2.2
firmware.
To install v1.4 firmware on to HD, the user has to perform system initialization page to
upload the v1.4 firmware and this means the original NAS/backup data will be
destroyed.
WARNING
We strongly recommend you to have all your data on the unit backed up,
before you start the firmware upgrade.
Steps of firmware update
1. Browse to the web management page of the unit (by default it’s
http://192.168.0.101, you can use Storage System Console to open the page for it.
The Storage System Console program can be found on the CD inside the package of
freeStor 4020, please check the user manual for more information on how to install
the Storage System Console program).
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2. Click Browse, locate the firmware pkg file on your local hard drive, and click Open
3. Click the Upload button to continue,
Answer Yes if you see the prompt below after that,
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4. Then the pkg file will start to be uploaded
Once the upload is done, the unit will perform the flash writing.
5. Click “Next” when you see the page like below, this will start the system initializing
process.
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Please refer to the user manual for more details on how to finish the system
initializing.
Contact Us
For any questions you may have before or during the firmware upgrade, please contact
our technical support team, the toll free number can be found at the page below
http://www.freedom9.com/support .
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