FreeNAS Won't start

[Justin_]

Hi guys let me give you some history; about 8 months ago I built a FreeNAS box using an ASRock QC5000-ITX with onboard AMD A4-500 APU, 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Panram RAM, and 3X2TB Refurb SATA2 7200 RPM Toshiba drives in RAIDZ, then about 3 months ago I added a random 500GB HDD to store videos, I filled it up reasonably fast and have been streaming videos off of it and the main disk array, recently I have been transferring everything to a newer more powerful server with more storage and I have emptied the 500GB drive and removed/unmounted it, it is completely physically disconnected at this point. I have been using it with an issue that I have only recently eliminated to the server that it will apparently drop the network connection, causing file transfers to stop, but that was never a major issue.

It is currently running FreeNAS 9.3, it had an update, but I didn't install it because I was going to stop using it soon so I didn't want to install an update that could potentially cause issues.

What the problem that I am here for help is the server recently dropped off the network (as looking on the network in Windows file explorer) so I did a hard reset by flipping off the power switch on the power supply, then flipping it back on, but it still wouldn't connect. So after I waited a while it still would not connect, so I hooked up a monitor and saw that it didn't boot up, I just saw what is in the photo. so I flipped it off and back on again the same way, but still nothing.

Do any of you have any ideas of what I could try??

Thanks
Justin_

 

[Sakuru]

It looks like it's trying to import your pool. I suggest giving time to do its thing. It may take a while.

 

[Justin_]

It will normally finish in a few minutes, but after letting it sit overnight it is now stuck here...

 

[Sakuru]

Interesting. Can you get to the web GUI?

 

[Justin_]

No I still can not

 

[cyberjock]

First thing I'd do is test your RAM with something like memtest. /hoping it isn't bad RAM

 

[Justin_]

Ok I am now running memtest86, ill give an update after 1 or 2 passes

 

[Justin_]

Ok memtest86 has gone through and did not find any issues

 

[danb35]

Do you have deduplication enabled, by any chance? The errors sure look like you're out of memory, and that could cause it.

 

[Justin_]

Yes I think I do have data deduplication on. What can I try to do to fix it?

 

[danb35]

More RAM.

 

[Justin_]

Is there any other way? I would need to order more RAM.

 

[Justin_]

Would 256MB potentially be enough, I am able to decrease the amount of RAM reserved for the onboard GPU

 

[Justin_]

Ok so I lowered the amount of RAM reserved for the onboard graphics from 512MB down to 32MB but it is still getting stuck here

 

[Justin_]

Ok it is now looking exactly like the first photo, with the Started XXXX seconds ago, Calls XXXX

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

8GB DDR3

I think I do have data deduplication on.

Would 256MB potentially be enough

In this context, "more RAM" is more along the lines of "try doubling the RAM and see if that helps".

 

[Justin_]

yes I figured, but I will need to order more

 

[gpsguy]

The rule of thumb is to have 5GB of RAM, per 1TB of storage to be deduplicated.

There is no upper bound on memory needs. This is why we don't recommend using it.

See section 8.1.3 "Create Dataset" and read up on Dedeplication.

Would 256MB potentially be enough, I am able to decrease the amount of RAM reserved for the onboard GPU

 

[cyberjock]

If you enabled deduplication, good luck. This could get messy... err.. expensive. :/

 

[danb35]

yes I figured, but I will need to order more

If there's another machine with lots more RAM you could temporarily put the drives in, that might help--at least allow you to get the pool imported (and hopefully set up another dataset without dedup and move your data to it).