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Forum Discussion
SuperNASman
Sep 13, 2015Aspirant
Attached USB Device as iSCSI volume
Is it possible to attach a USB device to a ReadyNAS Pro or ReadyNAS RN102 and create an iSCSI volume from that? I would like to attach an external USB 3.0 drive that is encrypted with bitlocker t...
- Sep 14, 2015
What you could do is create a VHD file encrypted with bit locker, and host that on the NAS - either on an internal volume or on the USB drive. If the USB drive was formatted as NTFS, that would have a similar effect (you could access the VHD directly from a Windows PC by attaching the USB drive to the PC, or via the NAS).
Decryption of the VHD is done in the PC client (to the NAS it is just a big file).
http://www.howtogeek.com/193013/how-to-create-an-encrypted-container-file-with-bitlocker-on-windows/ shows how to make the encrypted vhd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBhej67wD98 shows how to mount it from a network share.
One caveat - VHD support requires Windows professional, enterprise, or ultimate.
mdgm-ntgr
Sep 13, 2015NETGEAR Employee Retired
No. iSCSI LUNs are created on the internal volume.
- StephenBSep 14, 2015Guru - Experienced User
What you could do is create a VHD file encrypted with bit locker, and host that on the NAS - either on an internal volume or on the USB drive. If the USB drive was formatted as NTFS, that would have a similar effect (you could access the VHD directly from a Windows PC by attaching the USB drive to the PC, or via the NAS).
Decryption of the VHD is done in the PC client (to the NAS it is just a big file).
http://www.howtogeek.com/193013/how-to-create-an-encrypted-container-file-with-bitlocker-on-windows/ shows how to make the encrypted vhd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBhej67wD98 shows how to mount it from a network share.
One caveat - VHD support requires Windows professional, enterprise, or ultimate.
- SuperNASmanSep 17, 2015Aspirant
Stephen, if I have created a VHD file encrypted with bitlocker that is hosted on the NAS through USB, how can i back up to that VHD?
For instance, if I attach the VHD from a windows client, it appears as local drive F:
If I wanted to Rsync to that USB Drive, what would the file path be?
It's a little confusing.
If you could assist I would be grateful.
Thank you.
- StephenBSep 17, 2015Guru - Experienced User
VHD (virtual disk) is similar to iSCSI. You mount the VHD from the PC (as I guess you have done). Then you access it just like a regular drive from the PC.
But like iSCSI that's pretty much all you can do. The VHD file is opaque to the NAS. And of course since it is client-side encrypted, only clients with the key can decrypt it.
If that is not the behavior you wanted/expected, perhaps you should tell us more about what you want to do with the disk..
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