VirtualBox and Windows Vista

Now that I’d successfully virtualised Windows XP, it was time to turn my attention to virtualising a legacy Windows Vista system that I owned. My Vista inventory included: A custom-built desktop with a Pentium 4 processor running Vista Home Premium. A Vista Home Premium upgrade CD. I found the experience of virtualising my copy of …
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What about antivirus solutions for legacy Windows?

Microsoft Security Essentials no longer updates for Windows XP and Windows Vista. So, what about antivirus software for legacy Windows? One of the issues of moving to a free antivirus (AV) solution is the nag-ware. If there is nothing of a sensitive nature on the client and there are no special hardware dependencies, don’t bother. Instead, …
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Resilio Sync Setup for OS X 10.8+ Clients (legacy)

You will need to setup the sync server first. The instruction here is for setting up sync client software on Android devices to backup important data from them on to the server. The app screens that follow are from the following version of the sync client:   Step 1: Install and start the sync client. When starting […]

Is replacing disks to grow a ZFS pool viable on FreeNAS?

Well, the answers to this question will undoubtedly be complex and varied so I will limit my discussion to home or small business systems. The response I give is based on my experiences in this area. Let’s start by looking at a breakdown of the key hardware costs of my first FreeNAS server. The build …
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RAID-Z1 or RAID-Z2 for FreeNAS?

There’s a raging debate on the merits of RAID-Z2 over RAID-Z1. Both have their pluses and minuses. RAID-Z2 requires two disks for redundancy and is less attractive for home and small business systems, which generally have no more than about five disks in a RAID configuration. However, as disk capacities grow, for instance, as I …
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Mirrored Boot Drives on FreeNAS

Creating a mirrored boot device in FreeNAS is well documented. I’d personally encourage and recommend having redundant boot devices on home or small business FreeNAS system for a couple of reasons: As the FreeNAS operating system typically resides on low-cost USB sticks, mirroring FreeNAS boot drives is inexpensive; and It eliminates the boot device being …
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