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SOLVED FreeNAS 9.1 on HP Proliant Microserver Gen8 MicroSD card
- Thread starter churnd
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I've been working on getting my new Gen8 microserver working on ANY type of NAS system for a week now. I'm pulling my hair out. So did you actually get it up and running? I have two USB sticks to work with and a MicroSD card. I don't care what I use to make it work, but it'd be great to be done. When I tried to load FreeNAS, I got BTX Loader issues that seem to be common with the gen8. How did you get past that? Or did you not run into that problem?
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm not sure about a btx loader issue. I solved my issue by booting the Microserver to a linux livecd, downloading the FreeNAS img file, then dd'ing the img file to the MicroSD card. Directions here: http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Burning_an_IMG_File
Yeah, I have two different USB sticks, a SanDisk 16GB microSD and a 16GB transcend microSD. I tried every combination I could think of, and never got the machine to run. Always stopped at the BTX loader. I'm RMA'ing the box and will be posting a message looking for some advice on hardware probably later this evening, or tomorrow, depending on how much of my own research I can do tonight.
Thanks for the replies though.
Thanks for the replies though.
jimmyboy_101
Cadet
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had the same issue. Problem is with the HP Sata Controller. Switch it from HP Dynamic Sata Array to Sata AHCI in the BIOS and it will boot fine, (changing that will also wipe any data stored on any harddrives in the machine.
Looks like FreeNas does a check for drives and if it cant find any it just gives up and doesnt boot. a warning message would be nice
Booting from a 16gb class 4 SD Card should be fast enough i hopes
Looks like FreeNas does a check for drives and if it cant find any it just gives up and doesnt boot. a warning message would be nice
Booting from a 16gb class 4 SD Card should be fast enough i hopes
I can tell you that:
1. Using SD cards.. very bad idea.
2. AHCI is the only recommended configuration per the manual. It even says to verify you are in AHCI mode.
3. FreeNAS will boot up just fine with no additional disks attached. I've done it many times for testing purposes. It's not too useful without data disks, but it does work. More than likely the problem is from #2. That is, you were supposed to be in AHCI mode and since you were in the HP Dynamic SATA array the drivers crashed on bootup.
1. Using SD cards.. very bad idea.
2. AHCI is the only recommended configuration per the manual. It even says to verify you are in AHCI mode.
3. FreeNAS will boot up just fine with no additional disks attached. I've done it many times for testing purposes. It's not too useful without data disks, but it does work. More than likely the problem is from #2. That is, you were supposed to be in AHCI mode and since you were in the HP Dynamic SATA array the drivers crashed on bootup.
stoooo
Dabbler
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Can you elaborate on that ? It seems that the microSD slot in the Gen8 would be the ideal choice for booting from.
ser_rhaegar
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I did not have much luck running FreeNAS off the microSD slot of my Gen8 either. I'm using the internal USB port next to it with an 8GB Kingston drive. Works great.
The BTX error is related to AHCI mode for sure. I had the same issue until I switched the setting to SATA AHCI. Though I did not lose any data on my drives which were pulled from an ESXi implementation of FreeNAS using VT-d. Data was a copy off my Time Capsule for testing so I wasn't too worried about it.
The BTX error is related to AHCI mode for sure. I had the same issue until I switched the setting to SATA AHCI. Though I did not lose any data on my drives which were pulled from an ESXi implementation of FreeNAS using VT-d. Data was a copy off my Time Capsule for testing so I wasn't too worried about it.
The problem is 2 fold:(keep in mind all flash memory isn't the same internally)
1. Uneven wear. SD cards have no complex controller like an SSD(and some USB sticks).
2. SD cards are extremely simple. You are converting from SD card to USB. Not a good place to be in as they just can't perform. It doesn't take much latency(which SD cards have plenty of) for the OS to freak out and start failing reads and writes.
1. Uneven wear. SD cards have no complex controller like an SSD(and some USB sticks).
2. SD cards are extremely simple. You are converting from SD card to USB. Not a good place to be in as they just can't perform. It doesn't take much latency(which SD cards have plenty of) for the OS to freak out and start failing reads and writes.
Does FreeNAS do heavy writes to the media it's installed to? I thought it was more of a read only type thing.
It's not uncommon to run environment like this on SD cards in production. Most servers have SD card slots in them for somewhere to install ESXi itself, for example. Why else would HP include a microSD card slot on the Microserver's motherboard (with the clear intention of that's how it'd be used)?
It's not uncommon to run environment like this on SD cards in production. Most servers have SD card slots in them for somewhere to install ESXi itself, for example. Why else would HP include a microSD card slot on the Microserver's motherboard (with the clear intention of that's how it'd be used)?
Nope, but SD cards have other problems. And you don't need "heavy writes". All you need is about 1000 writes to the same sector and your SD card is done. It'll be corrupting data at that location and SD cards do NOT offer remapping of bad sectors!
Four reasons why I won't even answer this question:
1. This is not ESXi.
2. I'm not going to presume what HP includes a microSD card for. That's beyond the scope of this forum.
3. It's more than just "dumb storage area" for your OS. Either you understand the technology and know how to apply it properly or you don't.
4. Notice that we say USB stick in the manual. We don't say SD card, microSD card, etc etc. That wasn't an accident. We've even got a freakin' warning on using SD cards. If that wasn't enough.. good luck.
Firstly; I work for HP.
Secondly; Anything I say is completely my own opinion.
The idea of using the microSD card for running an O/S, (any type of O/S), is bad for the very reasons cyberjock outlined above.
Yes - It is actually possible to run an O/S on the SD. However, you need to take into consideration the type of O/S and loading on the SD card.
The SD boot media is generally considered to be a provisioning method. That is: you put in the SD boot media, and install the O/S from there.
If you are going to do so. HP recommends to use HP SD boot media.
Taking into account the below snippet, you will have to modify FreeNAS a fair bit to address these write issues.
<snippet from the SD boot PDF> - http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA4-9872ENW.pdf
SD boot considerations
Enterprise server environments differ on requirements, goals, and applications being run. For example, VMware®
environments, where the focus is on performance and reliability with a small deployment footprint, the 8-GB SD media kits
are recommended.
SD boot may not be advisable for some environments. OS drive space services both reads and writes, and write-centric
operations affect the endurance of an SD card. The following situations may not be suitable for SD boot or may require re-
configuring their operation:
I/O profile - Write-centric configurations such as locally hosted databases or virtual machines (VMs) are not recommended.
Such configurations are best served with dedicated high-end shared storage. Using an SD card to serve VMs or databases
housed on dedicated storage helps both to isolate mission critical storage as well as maximize return on investment (ROI)
on high end storage solutions without requiring repetitive OS images.
Swapping – Swapping to SD is certainly allowed, but it will actually diminish both SD endurance and system performance.
Swap commits to SD will be much slower than simply maintaining those pages in memory. Since most servers today are
configured with plenty of memory to operate without a swap file, swapping can be turned off.
Logging - Although many people take system log files as a given, the continual commit of low bandwidth logs can slow
down SD-based systems and reduce SD endurance. SD counters in iLO can be used to measure and determine the amount
of writes idle logs can generate. You can improve logging performance by:
• Reduce logs down to the lowest amount possible.
• Re-direct logging for many systems to network attached storage instead of locally attached disks. This also provides
centralized locations for logs for collection of data.
Crash dumps - Although crash dumps are rare, default crash dump configurations are generally over cautious and in some
cases can be disabled. Reducing the size of crash dumps can allow a good middle ground while still providing some of the
features and desired event analysis.
Hibernation files – In typical server environments hibernation features are used rarely—if at all. These features can be
removed without concern. In many cases, this will reduce hibernation file creation, which can slow startup, shutdown or
deployment events.
Some great info here. I also just saw this on my twitter feed:
http://www.ixsystems.com/storage/freenas/
Interesting in that the form factor closely resembles a Microserver. Also interesting in that one of the key points states:
"Latest FreeNAS version installed and configured on dedicated, internal flash device"
It would be ironic if that were referring to a microSD card as well.
http://www.ixsystems.com/storage/freenas/
Interesting in that the form factor closely resembles a Microserver. Also interesting in that one of the key points states:
"Latest FreeNAS version installed and configured on dedicated, internal flash device"
It would be ironic if that were referring to a microSD card as well.
So Do I , even Nas4Free .
When I used iLO and Virtual Media to mount LiveCD.iso .
after loading opensolaris.ko , and seems everything is ok !
But, some error was happened!
umass0: SCSI over Bulk-Only; quirks = 0x100
umass0:2:0:-1: Attached to scbus2
(probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): INQUIRY. CDB: 12 00 00 00 24 00
(probe0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): CAM status: CCB request completed with an
so sad .....
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