9.2.x.x (USB) upgrade to 9.3 on HP Microserver, who has done it?

[diskdiddler]

Hello all,

I recall some posts from users with 9.3 having issues upgrading on their Microserver.
I've specifically held off to let the bugs iron out but it's been near 3 months since 9.3 has been out, so I'm thinking it's nearly time.

I have 6xSATA disks connected and I run FreeNAS from a 2 or 4gb USB key which has gone without incident thus far.
I currently run 6 jails (SabNZBD, Crashplan, Qbittorrent, Sickbeard, Couchpotato and HTPC manager)

I figure I can do it 2 ways. Backup the FreeNAS config file, re-flash a new USB key, insert it and restore the file, THEN import my volume (this sounds frightening but ... I believe it should work in an emergency?)
The other option appears to be as mentioned in this documentation using the firmware update feature, assuming this even works from 9.2 to 9.3?


So who has done it, how did you go?
2 bonus questions
1, I am under the assumption that 9.3 is just going to progressively updated from here on, I shouldn't need to do much more manual work updating it. However I suspect 10 will be a different beast, due to significant changes, right?
2, Are there any small or major performance increases in 9.3 over 9.2 or anything planned? I recall the original list of changes from 9.2 to 9.3 but has any cool stuff been added to the standard updates since launch in December?

Thanks.

 

[pschatz100]

I would suggest you pick up a larger usb stick before updating. 8Gb is the recommended minimum, but for a few dollars more I would get a 16Gb stick. Version 9.3 downloads updates to the boot drive and saves them in a way that allows you to revert to a previous boot image if necessary. 16Gb gives you more space to keep old boot images.

You didn't say anything about your hardware or what version of 9.2 you are on. If it were me, I'd do the following:
1) I would do a fresh install of 9.2.1.9 on a usb stick 8Gb or larger, import your configuration and data volumes.
2) Make certain everything works OK. Over the course of the 9.2 releases, there were some significant enhancements to things like Samba, so you want to verify that everything runs and that your jails (if you have them) are all OK.
3) Then update to 9.3 using the GUI update. It's easy, but be patient. The system will boot twice and there will be time when it seems like nothing is happening. You should wait at least 30 minutes after everything is finished before logging in and poking around. I let mine run overnight.
4) After the update, the system will give you a warning that there are new ZFS features available. Do not update ZFS at this time. Run the system for a while to make certain everything is good. If you update ZFS, you will not be able to downgrade to 9.2 should you have an issue with 9.3.
5) Once you are confident that everything is good, then update ZFS.

I'm always very careful about updates. I have too much time invested in my data to be in a hurry when I make a system change. Of course, I also made a backup of my data before starting any of this.

 

[diskdiddler]

I would suggest you pick up a larger usb stick before updating. 8Gb is the recommended minimum, but for a few dollars more I would get a 16Gb stick. Version 9.3 downloads updates to the boot drive and saves them in a way that allows you to revert to a previous boot image if necessary. 16Gb gives you more space to keep old boot images.

You didn't say anything about your hardware or what version of 9.2 you are on. If it were me, I'd do the following:

I have FreeNAS 9.2.1.6 on a HP Microserver N54L, 8GB ram, 6x5GB drives, currently works practically flawlessly to be honest.

1) I would do a fresh install of 9.2.1.9 on a usb stick 8Gb or larger, import your configuration and data volumes.
2) Make certain everything works OK. Over the course of the 9.2 releases, there were some significant enhancements to things like Samba, so you want to verify that everything runs and that your jails (if you have them) are all OK.

You're the second person now to tell me to go to 9.2.1.9, instead of directly to 9.3. I thought CyberJock may be potentially overly paranoid, but ok yep I will definitely do this, thank you. I hadn't thought about the USB space management. so I'll "burn" a new 9.2.1.9 USB key on what I assume is a half decent quality 16gb stick. (what's the technical reason for not just going straight to 9.3?)

3) Then update to 9.3 using the GUI update. It's easy, but be patient. The system will boot twice and there will be time when it seems like nothing is happening. You should wait at least 30 minutes after everything is finished before logging in and poking around. I let mine run overnight.
4) After the update, the system will give you a warning that there are new ZFS features available. Do not update ZFS at this time. Run the system for a while to make certain everything is good. If you update ZFS, you will not be able to downgrade to 9.2 should you have an issue with 9.3.
5) Once you are confident that everything is good, then update ZFS.

I'm always very careful about updates. I have too much time invested in my data to be in a hurry when I make a system change. Of course, I also made a backup of my data before starting any of this.

Regarding being thorough about backups, I can only afford the backup space for critical things.
So any advice regarding this would be useful too, as I'd like to try and have a backup of my jails - not that the data is that important but the time setting them up was painful.
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...htpc-mylar-ll-gamez.16200/page-56#post-178435 (compressing a jail into a single, external file)

 

[diskdiddler]

Quick question to anyone listening.
About to boot from a fresh 9.2.1.9 USB key
Should I import my SETTINGS first (saved .DB file) then import the data volume, or import the data then the settings?

 

[diskdiddler]

Well, it's complete and what a complete and utter disaster it was for several hours............... I speculate there's some bugs in the update process.

What I did.
Backup 9.2.1.6 to a .DB file.
"Burn" a fresh/ new 9.2.1.9 USB key (16gb)
Boot from key, import volume, worked. Update settings / restore DB
Rebooted
All worked, 9.2.1.9 ran perfectly, jails, shares, etc all worked fine as predicted by 2 people.

THEN.....

Attempted to 'update firmware' with the 9.3 update, ouch.
Went through I think one reboot, but second reboot hung.
This error, apparently well known too... ?
https://www.google.com.au/search?q="ACPI PCI BUS" "FreeNAS" "9.3"&hl=en&meta=&gws_rd=ssl

Then spent the next 2 hours hooking up monitors, booting off different USB keys, having it refuse to install to 2 USB keys at once.
Ended up installing 9.3 to a single USB key, cloning to a second USB for some redundancy within the GUI and importing my 9.2.1.9 settings (I was prudent enough to back up the settings /again/ after the first update worked, incase some new settings were in the newer backups?)

This appears to have worked, 9.3 is now on 2 keys, "RAID1" (so to speak) and shares / data / jails seem ok.
Sure hope the auto-update process in future is smoother though, I figured waiting this long and going from 9.2.1.9 -> 9.3 would be smooth.

 

[cyberjock]

You're the second person now to tell me to go to 9.2.1.9, instead of directly to 9.3. I thought CyberJock may be potentially overly paranoid, but ok yep I will definitely do this, thank you.

I may be paranoid. But I also read pretty much every post and every thread on the forum. So I watch what everyone else screws up (either deliberately or accidentally) and use that to give better advice.

So you're generally better off listening to me, even if its a bit paranoid. There is always a reason for what I say, even if I don't share it. ;)

Of course, you are welcome to ignore me and be another statistic of things I see people do that I have to remember " tell people to not do what diskdiddler did". ;)

 

[diskdiddler]

Hey, ultimately 9.2.1.9 was infact the wrong thing to do, so..... you know? :D mmm

 

[pschatz100]

Hey, ultimately 9.2.1.9 was infact the wrong thing to do, so..... you know? :D mmm

And why would you say that? By your own comments, the update to 9.2.1.9 worked OK.

I'm not familiar with your hardware, but there is one thing that stands out when you follow the forums:
1) AMD systems tend to be more problematic than Intel systems. That doesn't mean they can't work, it is just that AMD users see more strange problems. It is clear that FreeBSD is not as well supported on AMD as it is on Intel. But you got it to work - that's great.

I'm curious how you attach 6 drives as the motherboard has 5 sata ports (according to HP documentation.) What did you do for the 6th drive?

Quite franky, from your discussion it looks like the system didn't like the boot device after the attempted update to 9.3. Could be a lot of reasons for that: anything from a bad write or unreliable USB stick to bios settings.

Burning a new 9.3 image and then just reinstalling everything worked. Personally, I think that is terrific. None of my windows systems could be recovered so easily!! So while it is annoying that things didn't work as smoothly as you wanted, I'd be pretty pleased that it all ended up OK.

 

[gpsguy]

The common way to do it is to use the eSATA connection and stuff 2 HDD's in the ODD slot. One has to run a hacked BIOS to enable AHCI on the extra two drives.

I'm surprised the OP can get away with 8GB of RAM for "6x5TB drives".

I'm curious how you attach 6 drives as the motherboard has 5 sata ports (according to HP documentation.) What did you do for the 6th drive?

 

[diskdiddler]

And why would you say that? By your own comments, the update to 9.2.1.9 worked OK.

I'm not familiar with your hardware, but there is one thing that stands out when you follow the forums:
1) AMD systems tend to be more problematic than Intel systems. That doesn't mean they can't work, it is just that AMD users see more strange problems. It is clear that FreeBSD is not as well supported on AMD as it is on Intel. But you got it to work - that's great.

I'm curious how you attach 6 drives as the motherboard has 5 sata ports (according to HP documentation.) What did you do for the 6th drive?

Quite franky, from your discussion it looks like the system didn't like the boot device after the attempted update to 9.3. Could be a lot of reasons for that: anything from a bad write or unreliable USB stick to bios settings.

Burning a new 9.3 image and then just reinstalling everything worked. Personally, I think that is terrific. None of my windows systems could be recovered so easily!! So while it is annoying that things didn't work as smoothly as you wanted, I'd be pretty pleased that it all ended up OK.

9.2.1.9 was unable to update to 9.3
Had I just gone direct to 9.3 I wouldn't have suffered the hanging issues.
I do prefer the method I ended up doing, despite being riskier, I'm very impressed with what's backed up in that little .DB file - it was a very smooth migration considering it was by traditional definition a "fresh re-install"
Somewhat similar to a high end version of the Microsoft "Windows Easy Transfer" tool which is surprisingly useful - but this was superior.

All good in the end, I hope this thread helps someone else.

and yes, it purrs fine with 8gb, has done for 6 months, the "gb per tb is a must!!!" stuff is hyperbole or for people running deduplication.