VMware - not able to boot FreeNAS with damaged storgae-HHD

[heck]

Hello,

first of all. Sry for my bad language. English is not my foreign language :)

I have a little Problem with my NAS.

My freenas software is (was) running on a virtual machine - vSphere Client 5.5.0 (build 1618071) and EXCI 5.5.0 (1623387)
Hardware consists of

• SUPERMICRO X10SLM-F
  
• Intel Xeon E3-1200 Serie E3-1230V3 (shared 2 cores in VM)
  
• Kingston ValueRam EEC 8GB (shared 4 gB in VM)

The software (freenas) is stored on a hdd.
The storage devices are 2 WD reds 3tb (WD30EFRX).
I am realy not sure what raid system i used :(
I guess (!) it was raid z because it was recommended, when i build up the raid.



It worked fine for about 1,5 years. Then suddenly, when i am trying to boot the server vmware says:
"VMware ESX kann die virtuelle Festplatte '/vmfs/volumes/536a92d5-eaec0bd2-a675-002590d4c518/FreeNAS/FreeNAS_2.vmdk' nicht finden. Stellen Sie sicher, dass der Pfad gültig ist, und versuchen Sie es erneut.
Einschalten des Moduls DiskEarly fehlgeschlagen. "

I am not able to start the freenas-operation-system, while one of the storage devices is damaged (or the file is missing)?

How am I supposed to know whats wrong with the system, if i am not able to boot.

When I try to look for the missing data (FreeNAS_2.vmdk) it seems the HDD is empty. File "FreeNAS_1.vmdk" located on the other HDD is still there.

So my questions are:

1. Is there any way to restore the data? Especially my Photodata :(
2. Is it possible to boot up the software form a standalone pc without the virtualisation?
3. Am i able to see the data from the WD-Red-HDDs on a simple computer just for checking if the data is damaged?

Greetings from germany
hecky

 

[heck]

When i look in configuration/storage infos in vmware it also says, that nothing is wrong.
It looks similar to the working HDD

• nothing is damaged
• only 8.x gb of free space (or does it only mean the reserved space?)

I am not able to look on the drives when plugging them in straight to another computer.

It is only possible to view the content when choosing the "search drive"-option in vmware. And here i see the file needed is missing :(

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

It looks like you were running FreeNAS virtualized, with 4GB of RAM, and with virtualized drives instead of pass-through. It's not clear if you were running a mirror or a stripe.

1. I doubt it. I suppose you could try photorec.
2. Yes, but that's not going to enable you to mount the pool.
3. No.

 

[heck]

Hi there thanks for the answer.

I reinstalled FreeNas on another HDD.
I managed to import the working WD-HDD and share it in network via cifs so i can backup my storage.

On this point ... I am glad :)

I think i will start from scratch.

- I ordered a tiny ssd for freenas. (sadly its not practicle to install FN on a USB-Drive while running on a vm)
- Upgrade to 3 additional WDreds for (real) raidZ.
- ...and upgrade the ram up to 24gig, because another vm also needs more. I thnik 20gig should be enough for the moment.

 

[gpsguy]

Before you start from scratch, please read one of jgreco's treatises on the subject. Here's a place to start - https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ide-to-not-completely-losing-your-data.12714/

 

[toadman]

Hi there thanks for the answer.

I reinstalled FreeNas on another HDD.
I managed to import the working WD-HDD and share it in network via cifs so i can backup my storage.

On this point ... I am glad :)

I think i will start from scratch.

- I ordered a tiny ssd for freenas. (sadly its not practicle to install FN on a USB-Drive while running on a vm)
- Upgrade to 3 additional WDreds for (real) raidZ.
- ...and upgrade the ram up to 24gig, because another vm also needs more. I thnik 20gig should be enough for the moment.

Why not just install FreeNAS in a virtual HDD (.vmdk) if it's a VM? Assuming you use pass-through of the SATA controller for the pool, it will work just fine. (as long as you disable the HPET timer.) I don't think you need to install freenas on a separate SSD. That seems like a waste of an SSD to me.

 

[heck]

Why not just install FreeNAS in a virtual HDD (.vmdk) if it's a VM? Assuming you use pass-through of the SATA controller for the pool, it will work just fine. (as long as you disable the HPET timer.) I don't think you need to install freenas on a separate SSD. That seems like a waste of an SSD to me.

Hmm. I never used passthroug. Either for the system (FreeNas) nor for the Storage-devices.
Each drive got a separet virtual storage on a logcal drive.
Maybee because i am to affraid when one drive dies, all the virtual machines collapse - am i wrong?
I ordered 2 SSDs for 15bucks each (32bg) which will suit for the low requirement.

 

[jgreco]

I realize your problem is "resolved" but I'm unhappy with the way this thread evolved, and I wanted to say some things. The forum was having problems the other morning and I didn't get to post a reply.

Hello,

first of all. Sry for my bad language. English is not my foreign language :)

No problem. Sorry for my bad language, English IS my first language, and so I'll keep it real simple when I say

DON'T DO THIS

We don't say that to be nasty. We say it because we hate to see questions like this in the forums. Because you can manage to lose your data forever if you do bad things.

I have a little Problem with my NAS.

My freenas software is (was) running on a virtual machine - vSphere Client 5.5.0 (build 1618071) and EXCI 5.5.0 (1623387)
Hardware consists of

• SUPERMICRO X10SLM-F
  
• Intel Xeon E3-1200 Serie E3-1230V3 (shared 2 cores in VM)
  
• Kingston ValueRam EEC 8GB (shared 4 gB in VM)

4GB is too little for FreeNAS. You need 8GB just for FreeNAS. Add some more RAM to the host system. If you really truly cannot possibly afford more RAM, you are STILL better off with giving FreeNAS the RAM and letting ESXi swap.

The software (freenas) is stored on a hdd.
The storage devices are 2 WD reds 3tb (WD30EFRX).
I am realy not sure what raid system i used :(
I guess (!) it was raid z because it was recommended, when i build up the raid.

If you only had two disks, it was not RAIDZ. It would be mirrors.

It worked fine for about 1,5 years. Then suddenly, when i am trying to boot the server vmware says:
"VMware ESX kann die virtuelle Festplatte '/vmfs/volumes/536a92d5-eaec0bd2-a675-002590d4c518/FreeNAS/FreeNAS_2.vmdk' nicht finden. Stellen Sie sicher, dass der Pfad gültig ist, und versuchen Sie es erneut.
Einschalten des Moduls DiskEarly fehlgeschlagen. "

I am not able to start the freenas-operation-system, while one of the storage devices is damaged (or the file is missing)?

Of course you can start FreeNAS with a missing storage device. This message is from ESXi, and I believe it's saying that it cannot find one of the component vmdk files. ESXi won't start your VM since it can't find all the pieces.

How am I supposed to know whats wrong with the system, if i am not able to boot.

If you wish to virtualize FreeNAS, you should have enough experience with the virtualization platform that you can deal with this sort of issue.

When I try to look for the missing data (FreeNAS_2.vmdk) it seems the HDD is empty. File "FreeNAS_1.vmdk" located on the other HDD is still there.

So my questions are:

1. Is there any way to restore the data? Especially my Photodata :(

Since it was probably a mirror, yes, it should be recoverable. You seem to have done that. Yay. You are a proud member of an elite, small group of forum users who managed to avoid totally losing their data due to virtualization follies.

1. Is it possible to boot up the software form a standalone pc without the virtualisation?
2. Am i able to see the data from the WD-Red-HDDs on a simple computer just for checking if the data is damaged?

It isn't possible to read your ESXi datastores on a standalone PC, so the answer to the question I think you're asking is "no." And if you read the stickies I've posted on virtualization, you may come to realize that one of the big GOALS of a virtualized FreeNAS is that you should not be dependent on the hypervisor. PCI passthrough (VT-d) gives a VM dedicated control over a hardware controller, which means that the VM looks and feels a lot more like honest hardware to FreeNAS.

I know it's a real bummer to find out that virtualization of FreeNAS isn't quite as easy as people would like to think it is. If you do it carefully and with the necessary knowledge and experience, you can successfully virtualize FreeNAS. However, you've come very close to a situation that could have gone sideways for you.

 

[toadman]

Hmm. I never used passthroug. Either for the system (FreeNas) nor for the Storage-devices.
Each drive got a separet virtual storage on a logcal drive.
Maybee because i am to affraid when one drive dies, all the virtual machines collapse - am i wrong?
I ordered 2 SSDs for 15bucks each (32bg) which will suit for the low requirement.

I think you need more understanding of what you are trying to do with FreeNAS in a virtualized environment. Until you get that understanding, as jgreco stated DON'T DO THIS.

You have to separate the storage ESXi is using for it's datastore(s) (which could be a local vmfs on dedicated drives, or a networked iscsi volume, or an NFS mount) from the (obviously local) storage you plan to have FreeNAS manage. It's not the same thing.

When I said store the VM in a .vmdk that would be in some datastore ESXi has access to. The disks you want Freenas to manage would be connected to the controller you pass-through to the Freenas VM. In this case ESXi doesn't see or use that controller, Freenas has control of that hardware. PLEASE READ UP on how this works in ESXi and do quite a bit of testing before you try to virtualize Freenas in production.

While I'm sure your system will work if you hand Freenas several .vmdk files as virtual drives (I've done it for testing purposes), the resulting system won't be as robust as you think, nor as performance efficient. (What level of redundancy does the storage hosting these drives have? It sounds like none. i.e. you were going to make one huge .vmdk per physical drive (datastore). In that case when a drive fails you'll have a complex fix at best. you'll have to replace the physical drive, create a new datastore, a new .vmdk, then start a replace/resilver in Freenas. Ugly. DON'T VIRTUALIZE WITHOUT PASS-THROUGH.)

Good luck. And as jgreco says, we're not trying to be difficult, rather alert you to choices you are making that have in the past led to catastrophic data loss.

 

[jgreco]

DON'T VIRTUALIZE WITHOUT PASS-THROUGH.

Actually I'll point out that the OP's scenario was effectively sufficiently close to what I propose in

https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ative-for-those-seeking-virtualization.26095/

but violates Key Concept #1 plus violates the minimum RAM thing. Violating the datastore redundancy rule means that if one of your underlying datastores goes south (which is what seems to have happened in this case), the hypervisor won't be able to spin up the VM.

This is where we implicitly expect people to have sufficient virtualization knowledge that they are able to postmortem and resolve that sort of thing; if you cannot postmortem and resolve an issue like that, you probably shouldn't be virtualizing FreeNAS.

 

[toadman]

Yep, I agree what you propose will absolutely work. :) And it probably makes sense in certain cases.

All things considered, I think the management of the thing would be much easier if he just used pass-through. Disks movable to a physical system, no issues with spinning up the VM with datastore loss, etc. (Unless he's trying to move the VM around a datacenter or something.)

This is where we implicitly expect people to have sufficient virtualization knowledge that they are able to postmortem and resolve that sort of thing; if you cannot postmortem and resolve an issue like that, you probably shouldn't be virtualizing FreeNAS.

Totally agree.

It sounds like the OP is headed down the path you suggest. SSD datastores, etc. (Which I still think are overkill given how freenas works.) I just encourage him to read up on pass-through and see if that isn't a better solution for his needs.

 

[heck]

Hey, thanks alot for the advice.
The only goal of the virtualisation was to reduce the number of hardware. Beliefe me, I do not fear the cost but at that moment i wanted to reduce the hardware a bit because there is a huge electrical rack in my bedroom which does not suite the environment very well :D
I thought, if i virtualize the NAS and my "audio-arranging"-PC I spare one 4-RU-housing.
As i mentinoed, it worked fine for almost 1,5years ... but as allways. When something goes wrong it will strike deep.
Lesson learned.

I will separate the two units, not quiet shure how to house them properly. I will not buy another Chenbro RM42300. 3 of them seem way to much.

Greetings!