Hi, I'm new and need a little help.

[Urumiko]

Hi there,
I have a FreeNAS setup based around an HP g8 microserver.
It has all 4 bays populated and a micro SD for boot.

I have no experience with BSD or free BSD and have so far been managing with the GUI.
I Mainly chose to go down this route as my understanding is that if the NAS itself fails then I should be able to transplant the HDDs in to any other FreeNAS system and recover my volume?

Recently I have been getting the following error on boot:

• CRITICAL: July 2, 2017, 9:17 p.m. - The boot volume state is ONLINE: One or more devices has experienced an error resulting in data corruption. Applications may be affected.

How do I investigate further?
What steps should I take?

I should point out that if it were to completely fail it would not be the end of the world as long as I could Mount the volumes in to a fresh install easy enough. (not that I know how to do this).

 

[melloa]

Hello ...

If I read correctly the message above is saying that you boot volume is experiencing problems, not your data volume.

#1 thing -> save the config in case you need to reinstall (system -> general -> save config).

With that behind us ... if you have a second USB port, I'd mirror the boot pool and replace the bad one. If not, I'd reinstall, import the volume, and config (*)

(*) Not sure how comfortable would you be doing that, based on your statement above.

 

[BigDave]

I have a Freenas setup based around an HP g8 microserver.
It has all 4 bays populated and a micro SD for boot.

You have made a very bad choice for a boot device. Change this to a high quality USB flash device
ASAP.

As melloa has suggested below

#1 thing -> save the config in case you need to reinstall (system -> general -> save config).

Do this NOW!

 

[Urumiko]

Thank you for the reply. I have saved the config as you suggest.
I can see there is a guide on mirroring the boot drive though. I will get a compact USB drive and take this step.

Hello ...
If I read correctly the message above is saying that you boot volume is experiencing problems, not your data volume.

Is there any way to furhter diagnose what the issue is? Bad sectors? that kind of thing?

You have made a very bad choice for a boot device. Change this to a high quality USB flash device
ASAP.

As melloa has suggested below
Do this NOW!

Hmm yes im guessing the SD card is not designed for this kind of always on work. Are there any recommended drives?
I think there is the option of another internal SATA drive also though this may be overkill.

Incidentally while we are discussing this kind of thing. My server is limited to 16gb of ram which is almos 100% utilised by the OS. Is there any way to reconfigure to use a page file on an SSD or something?

 

[BigDave]

Hmm yes im guessing the SD card is not designed for this kind of always on work. Are there any recommended drives?
I think there is the option of another internal SATA drive also though this may be overkill.

Minimum Recommended = USB 2.0 SanDisk 16GB Cruzer Fit OR quality equivalent!!
You can mirror two of these, but I hate USB and refuse to use them for boot devices in FreeNAS.
Today, the way FreeNAS works, a small capacity 2.5 SSD would be best if you have the SATA port avail.
You can mirror two of these, but that is complete overkill

 

[BigDave]

Incidentally while we are discussing this kind of thing. My server is limited to 16gb of ram which is almos 100% utilised by the OS.

Please post a screeshot of the GUI (like mine below)

 

[Urumiko]

Please post a screeshot of the GUI (like mine below)
View attachment 19267

Oh actually.. at the moment is seems ok (3g in use) though i did just update and reboot.
I'll keep an eye and re-post if it creeps up.

 

[joeschmuck]

My server is limited to 16gb of ram which is almos 100% utilised by the OS.

This is the way FreeNAS/FreeBSD works, it will consume all your RAM and use it for an ARC. This is normal. Rarely or after a reboot you will see less utilization of your RAM but it will get used up the more you use your system and data can be cached into the ARC. What you do not wan to see is the SWAP file being used, this is how you know that you have a low memory issue. A small amount of swap usage is fine but if you are using more than a few megabytes and are using it constantly, then you have a RAM shortage. The swap file is used to keep the system running, not to be used to make up for low memory.

 

[Ericloewe]

This is the way FreeNAS/FreeBSD works

Or any OS, really. Every vaguely modern OS will use free RAM for caching.

 

[Gramb67]

Suggest reading uncle festers and cyberjocks guides. I was pointed in that direction when l became interested in FreeNAS.

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