Note that the FreeNAS operating system resides on a separate device from the storage pool and that the pool is portable between installations and even ZFS-compatible operating systems. So yes, your data should be safe and yes, you should be able to upgrade from FreeNAS 9.1.1 to later 9.* versions.

ZFS is quite memory-intensive compared to other file systems but as a trade off provides far more integrity safeguards than most file systems.

That is adequate RAM for FreeNAS and the RAM usage by the jails will be determined entirely what software you run in them.

Yes. Comments are moderated to keep SPAM down. Sorry about the delay.

You can direct the output to a serial port: Settings: Advanced: Serial Port…

Hi Nick,
How exactly did you configure Clover to boot FREENAS? I can’t seem to force Clover to see it, and the documentation for Clover is rather light.
TIA,
Seth

You can still use UFS as a filesystem on some external device, just not as your “main file store” because FreeNAS is trying to provide for *reliable* file storage, and UFS provides no redundancy or self-healing features. You can also, for that matter, format a single drive as a ZFS filesystem if you simply wish to copy files over as a last-ditch DR strategy – that’s easy to do from the UI even. Just create another pool on your external drive, replicate your data from a snapshot over to it, then detach it. Done! You don’t need UFS.

I would advise you to upgrade the RAM and USB drive to 8GB before updating.

The RAID setup happens using the volume manager after you perform the FreeNAS install.

Whether upgrading, or performing a fresh install and importing the old configuration, the end result is the same: the filesystem will be ZFS root.

The workaround wasn’t usable as my issue is picky BIOS. I have gone through all possible configurations and found no solution there.
However, with Clover Bootloader, it turned out to be a simple UEFI boot extension. Some users booting from USB may not like having a second USB boot device, but in simple fact, it works and works well. This should work for all systems that refuse to boot from the new GPT/ZFS boot format.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cloverefiboot/

It seems odd that a motherboard that recent would insist on MBR booting, but ASUS has indeed been an inconsistent motherboard manufacturer when it comes to implementing — and sticking to — standards.
If you’re experiencing a mountroot problem, here is a workaround from the forum that might help: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/workaround-semi-fix-for-mountroot-issues-with-9-3.26071/
If that doesn’t work, I’d look to toggling BIOS settings related to USB booting, if available.

The “direct extraction” method of installing FreeNAS is no longer available since FreeNAS now takes advantage of the full capacity of the install media with ZFS. One of the reasons FreeNAS uses ZFS for the boot volume is to support “clones” of the boot volume itself as a failsafe in the case of a misconfiguration or bad upgrade. As a result, FreeNAS now requires scripts to be run at install time, which is not possible with the direct extraction method.
If you don’t have a CD drive available, the ISO image can now be directly copied to another USB drive (not the one for boot) and booted to provide the same installer experience as the CD installer. This is the recommended install method when a CD drive is not available.
Here is a link to the documentation regarding the install for 9.3:
http://doc.freenas.org/9.3/freenas_install.html
And, the release notes contain a clearer discussion of the boot and install features:
http://download.freenas.org/9.3/STABLE/201412301712/ReleaseNotes
I smell a new FAQ item coming…

If it worked with previous versions of FreeNAS, then it will also work with FreeNAS 9.3. Of course, I’d recommend using it in “JBOD” (pass-through) mode to take full advantage of ZFS by letting FreeNAS handle the RAID.

8GB is recommended. Fundamentally, some ZFS features (like prefetch) will even be disabled with less than 6GB of RAM. In some cases you might be ok with 4GB, and in others 8GB could even be far too little. For example, if it’s a use case like “Bob” describes above with a single 1TB drive, you could be fine, but at the end of the day, we recommend 8GB because it’s the minimum that we test and can therefore stand behind. Using less than 8GB is an “at your own risk” adventure and not recommended or supported. We plan on releasing a blog regarding this topic soon. Stay tuned!

Unofficially: I’d think you’d be ok in this scenario.
Officially: this isn’t something we have tested.

I have 10 GB RAM and lot’s of jails. How can I be sure that this amount of RAM is sufficient?

and if I have only 4 GB ? it’s a problem?

It is, indeed.

Yes, the recommended minimum is 8GB RAM.