Dell PowerEdge R320 Not recognizing HDDs when attempting to install FreeNAS.

[BitVolcano0804]

Hello everyone. I am new to FreeNAS, and I am attempting to install it on a Dell PowerEdge R320 with just a single 1 TB Dell Constellation ES3 right now. I'll probably add more drives in the future. My problem with installing is that when I boot into the FreeNAS installer using a USB, FreeNAS says "No drives available". I've working at this problem for several weeks now and am getting thoroughly frustrated. Can someone help me?

 

[Redcoat]

Welcome to the forums!

Don't get discouraged, lots of help here.

If I read you correctly you have only one drive in the system on which you want to install FreeNAS. This means that, all being normally functional, you will use that drive for the FreeNAS system only and will required one or more additional data drives before you can store anything on your server. Typically we would see the OS being install;ed on a small capacity device - maybe 128 GB max - an SSD is recommended, but 32 GB USB sticks are frequently chosen also (though not preferred as they may have a short life from frequent writes).

Is your current HDD seen by the BIOS?

Do you know which PERC Raid controller you have?

It would be helpful and meet the forum rules if you would please provide the spec of your R320 and the version of FreeNAS you are trying to install.

 

[BitVolcano0804]

My HDD is not seen by BIOS, and the Perc raid controller I’m using is the H310 mini. I do have a 32 gb stick to use. Sorry for not giving the specs. It Has 16 gb of ram, a single quad core Xeon e5 2407 v1, 4 hot swappable drive bays, 2 hot swappable psu, and the version i‘m attempting to install is 11.3

 

[Redcoat]

You need to have the HDD seen by the BIOS. I looked at the systems manuals but I can't tell if the mobo has sasa/sata ports to which drives can be connected directly (to bypass the H310 mini) - I assume that it does but info I found not clear. If it does I'd connect it that way and see if the HDD is visible in the BIOS.

You'll want to have the H310 in IT mode - search the forum for information on this - lots of posts on that topic.