Boot Volume Condition: DEGRADED One or more devices has experienced an unrecoverable error. An attempt was made to correct the error. Applications are

[Deckel]

I've found different posts on this, but nothing that really seems to help (novice me) really fix the problem. So, I'm hoping that this post will accomplish that task AND provide others with the ability to self-resolve a similar issue.

I've got a FreeNAS system that has been working for quite some time now. That is great. However, I am now getting checksum errors on the FreeNAS boot disk, as the title indicates. My system has a single USB stick as its boot disk. This has me somewhat chuckling and somewhat terrified. There is no redundancy with a single stick, of course. I'm not sure how much 'custom configuration' information is written to that device, which is where I start to become terrified.

All of this gets me to the simple question of "how do I fix this problem" in simple, easy to understand steps. My system is presently running so I have the luxury of (probably) being able to extract whatever information will be needed. I am assuming, of course, that I need to procure a new USB stick (or perhaps put an actual drive in the unit for the boot drive.... maybe this USB stick stuff is a bad idea?). Beyond that, I would really appreciate brain dead steps on bringing a new stick (or drive) that replicates the old one.

At my disposal I have a Mac (10.15.3... and probably some older ones too), several Win10 and WinXP machines, Linux, etc. The FreeNAS itself is a bit out of date, running FreeNAS-11.1-U7. If there is any additional information that is required, or useful, just let me know and I'll be happy to provide it.

Thank you again for any help you can provide. Please be very specific on commands that I need to execute. Although I'm very computer literate, I am not FreeNAS literate at all. Nor am I an IT administration person familiar with Linux administration. I program for a living, and I spend a lot of time in Linux, but very little in the configuration and/or lower level modifications of the system

Thanks!
Alan

 

[Pitfrr]

The easiest way to address a failing boot device is... to change it.
And FreeNAS makes it quite easy.
You have to save your configuration (this is something you should be doing in anyway).
Then you just have to reinstall FreeNAS on a new boot device (USB stick or any other device) and restore the configuration and you're good to go.
You'll find some details on the save and upload configuration buttons in the user manual after the table 5.2.1.

 

[Jailer]

"how do I fix this problem"

Save your config, fresh install to new boot device, upload saved config.

 

[Deckel]

OK. I feel stupid now, but that is OK. In truth, I've been very negligent in my administration of this system and that is BAD BAD BAD. I wasn't making any backups of the system. I will start doing that, though. I just backed up to my Mac easily enough and I have a USB stick on order. I'll probably take a spare one I have around in the interim. The 'on order' one is the result of a shelter in place order for covid, so I can't really go to the store and buy one.

 

[Deckel]

Wanted to add some feedback. My fears were completely for naught. This turned out to be brain dead simple... And this time around, I added a mirror so I shouldn't have any issues in the future.

 

[Deckel]

Oh... And thank you to the respondents!

 

[Yorick]

Also: USB sticks will fail. USB 3.0 sticks more rapidly than 2.0. the 3.0 ones are prone to overheating. A single SSD is more reliable than a mirror of USB sticks. An Intel 320 40GB SSD goes for 15 bucks on eBay and has plenty of life left for a boot drive. Something to consider.

Config backup can be automated, and even cloud-synced.

 

[Deckel]

That is interesting about the 3.0 dying more rapidly than the 2.0

I purchased two Samsung 3.0 32gb drives as replacements. When installing them, I realized that I had forgotten that I had a installed a 64gb SSD long ago with the intent of making that my boot drive. Anyhow, I have the USB as my primary boot and the SSD as my mirror. I guess that once the USB starts to fail, I'll replace it with my other USB. I don't have room for two SSD units in my enclosure, but I guess I'll move to a single (non-mirrored) system if need be.

Thank you for the info.