FreeNas Not Seeing All Drives

[cknott2243]

I am new to FreeNas so this is my first install. I have a system with a Perc h200i card but no RAID is done. FreeNas for some reason does not see one drive. It shows all others except for one 450GB SAS drive. I have read a few posts about upgrading the FW from the IR version to the IT version which I did but still the same issue.

Does anyone have any idea on what could cause this? I am replacing the card anyways with just a SBS HBA 6GB/s card hoping this might change something.

All ideas welcome and appreciated. On another note, how would you compare FreeNas and Nexenta. I really like the features I get with FreeNas that are not there with the community version of Nexenta but it looks as though there are a lot of posts and benchmarks on the net stating Nexenta has superior performance. Just wondering what the FreeNas community thinks of the performance.

Thanks.

 

[Kimba]

The benchmarks I saw were rather old (pre FreeNas 8.0.1) so I cannot say one way or another. What I can say is that I have been using FreeNas for several years and I really like it. I get about 40-70 MBS read/write on my two RaidZ pools it is easy to manage and if I feel in a Geeky mood I can go to town with it. Most importantly it is extremely robust and and that has a value that cannot be bench marked. I have done everything from replaced every drive in a pool to upgrade it, swapped out a mother board, moved a pool and no problems.

 

[cknott2243]

Thanks for the reply Kimba. I am looking forward to really testing it, I just need to get past this odd issue with it not recognizing all the drives. Anyone else have any ideas on what else I can look at?

Thanks.

 

[Kimba]

I had a problem a while back of bad cables (imagine that a bad Sata cable) so when I replaced it -- magically it worked.

 

[cknott2243]

I was thinking this as well so ordered some new cables. The only weird thing is, if a cable problem it would make sense that the BIOS or anything else would not see it as well. I did a test install of Linux and Windows OS on the same server and both see the drives in full which makes me think its not a cable issue but will replace anyways.

Thanks.

 

[cknott2243]

I have replaced cables, different drives, and latest firmware (IT version) and still one drive is not seen. If I install Windows, or even Nexenta the drive is seen. Any ideas?

 

[paleoN]

I have replaced cables, different drives, and latest firmware (IT version) and still one drive is not seen. If I install Windows, or even Nexenta the drive is seen. Any ideas?

Is it always whichever drive is plugged into the last slot on the Perc h200i card that doesn't get seen? Is FreeNAS including the correct driver for Perc h200i? You could test it with a FreeBSD 8.2 install, as it has some additional storage drivers, and see if that can see all the drives. You are still using the Perc h200i, right?

 

[cknott2243]

Thanks Paleon. I wish I was more of a HW guy as it might make things easier here. Yes, it is still the h200i card (no raid configured) and have tried IT and IR firmware. In terms of the driver I am not sure honestly as I do not get much farther into the install/setup after I see it not recognizing my drive. What would I do to check the driver? Install has been failing all of a sudden as well, AUTO SENSE error CD0, then SCSI errors. It is an external CD ROM but not sure why it would fail the whole installation now.

Thanks for any help.

 

[cknott2243]

Sorry, meant to also say I will try FreeBSD. I might also try OpenIndiana +napp-it to see if that works.

 

[paleoN]

Try a full FreeBSD 8.2 install to one of the hard drives. You may need to hook a drive up direct to the motherboard if the install doesn't see anything.

As far as the external CD drive, try a different USB cable in a different port. Also, orient the external drive so the cd is horizontal and on top if it isn't already. Perhaps the CD is scratched or bad?