HP Proliant microserver G8 - FreeNAS on SDD

[kabegtr]

Hello everyone, so last week i tried to make my first NAS server and i failed hard because i had poor knowledge. After a week on research i got answers for most problems i had with that but i totally missed a major problem:

The server i want to run FreeNAS is HP Proliant microserver G8, and the setup has:
Processor: Intel Xeon E3-1230 v2
Ram: 16GB
Storage: 2x 500gb HDD; 2x 3TB HDD + an 128GB SSD on the ODD port.

So i wanted to have a system that will boot on the SSD, and run the HDDs in 2 mirrored vdevs, but the main problem with that is that i cannot boot FreeNAS from the SSD cause AHCI mode has the HDDs as the boot drives.

The purpose of the server is to store pictures and videos from my main camera (I am a photographer) and i want it to be as stable as possible.
What do you propose, how should i fix the booting problem? I still want the FreeNAS to run on the SSD cause i think that will be the most durable option for my hardware.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Boot from the internal USB port but instead of a cheap "stick" drive use a proper SSD.
I linked some products here:

Easy hardware for freenas

I want to build a simple freenas for my house, i try with all pc but seems to many errors, i don't know if cables or power supply or hard drives, all toghether, anyone can link a simple mini case with all in on amazon.es for me? thanks. With 8gb ram is sufficient and new ssd, thanks.

www.ixsystems.com

 

[KrisBee]

For a HP gen8 microserver, use a SSD in the ODD bay connected to the internal blue sata port with an approrpriate ssd to FDD power connector. To boot from the SDD you will have to set up GRUB on a usb stick. The system boots GRUB which then points to the SSD. Your HDDs will be able operate in AHCI mode.

See, for example: https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/11-2-who-has-installed.71696/page-6#post-498218
and https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/bootloader-on-usb-freenas-on-ssd.56430/#post-395761

The USB stick is read only after set up.