Install 11.1 and 11.2 fails on New NAS

[Glen01]

I am new, so please don't get annoyed if I explain this wrong.

I created a Boot USB with the ISO for the 11.1 (Also tried the 11.2 RC) using rufus 3.3. I am building a new NAS for our small company currently using a synology 1817+ (Slow IOPS and write speeds).

The NAS Hardware
Mobo: Asus Z10PE-D16 WS (Dual Proc WorkStation Board) I did flash to the latest bios version.
Proc: 2 x Xeon E5-2630 V4 (10 Core 20 Threads)
Ram: 2 x Samsung 32GB Registered DDR4 (M393A4K40BB1-CRC)
SAS Controller: (Dell H310 6Gbps SAS HBA LSI 9211-8i IT Mode ZFS FreeNAS unRaid)
SSD: 1 x 256 Gb Samsung 860 PRO (OS Drive)
SSD: 4 x 2TB Samsung 860 EVO (Main storage) Will add more once I get this to work.
NVME: 1 x 1TB Samsung 970 PRO (Cache, Connected Via PCIe x 4)
GPU: Nvidia Quadro 600 (Something cheap for video)
Case: SuperMicro 2U SAS2-216EB Back Plane (I modified it to fit the new Mobo)

So the issue, I set the BIOS up for UEIF Boot under advance CMS(Something like that I done remember exactly). Set the Boot order to register the USB I created for the FreeNas 11.1 as the first option. When I boot I select install or let it default to install after 10 seconds. It start the install and right after it registers the CPU's or during it can't quite catch the last step it hits the computer reboots during the install. I don't know how to isolate the issue here. The Thumb drive doesn't seem to have a log of any sort that I can find that would show where it stopped. I am open to suggestions on how I can get this rig up and running. I hope I can get this because Windows Storage isn't half as good from what I have read about FreeNas as for the Performance and the ease of duplication to a second device for DR.

I thought maybe and issue with the hardware... So I installed Windows Server 2016 VIA MDT with out any issues at all. (For shits and giggles I installed FreeNas as a Hyper V, FYI sucks that way slow... No FreeNas Fault just Hyper-V)

 

[BigDave]

So the issue, I set the BIOS up for UEIF Boot under advance CMS(Something like that I done remember exactly). Set the Boot order to register the USB I created for the FreeNas 11.1 as the first option. When I boot I select install or let it default to install after 10 seconds. It start the install and right after it registers the CPU's or during it can't quite catch the last step it hits the computer reboots during the install

You will want to set the first boot to legacy to work with the THUMB DRIVE INSTALLER... no wait, this is all covered in the manual...

Here's the link to the documentation.

 

[Glen01]

Thank you BigDave, but as the manual states it can be in Legacy or EFI (EFI is the standard and UEFI is the implementation of EFI). I appreciate the assumption I didn't look at how to install it (1.4 Hardware Recommendations).

But that being said I did try to install it originally under legacy mode. I still had the same issues, right after the install option it goes starts listing all the CPU channels (I think that is what is at least) and reboots.

I have even removed all the hardware except the bare minimum (CPU, RAM, Video card, and USB stick for the install and USB for the destination location). I don't know if this is an issue with the installer or an issue with the hardware. I do hope It is something I am doing wrong so I don't have to purchase different hardware...

Thank you

 

[BigDave]

But that being said I did try to install it originally under legacy mode. I still had the same issues, right after the install option it goes starts listing all the CPU channels (I think that is what is at least) and reboots.

I'm sorry that you are having this trouble. Your issue may be (most likely) hardware/BIOS related OR
just flat out motherboard incompatibility with the (FreeBSD based) FreeNAS OS.
The manufacturer doesn't list compatibility with any other OS besides Windows Server versions (that I was able to find).

Using Google search, I found this post that may be of interest to you.

 

[Glen01]

Thank you BigDave, I followed there suggestion of adding the device hint, to the /boot/device.hints file on the Boot disk. With that I was able to get to the install screen.

Code:

hint.wbwd.0.disabled="1

I am now able to boot after install, and but the system just reboots during the OS Load. I had to change the boot commands after install as well.
I pressed 'e' to enter the command for the normall boot option

Code:

	set kFreeBSD.hint.wbwd.0.disabled="1
	set kFreeBSD.hint.achiem.0.disabled="1"	(Already there)

then press ctrl-x for the go back to boot.

It boots up, but I need to figure out how to save that permanently so I don't have to enter that each time I reboot.

I am able to get into the web interface so it is working.

If anyone can help me make the boot parameters permanent that would be great

Thank you.

 

[BigDave]

It boots up, but I need to figure out how to save that permanently so I don't have to enter that each time I reboot.

I would stop and give some very serious consideration to switching out that board for a Supermicro X10 model, there's a bunch to pick from for that pair of CPUs and it would be MUCH more stable than that
workstation board. If you are married to it and choosing another is not in the cards, you could do worse...

 

[Glen01]

Thank you BigDave, not married but it did come out of one of our workstations and I this is a proof of concept that we don't need to spend 80K on a high end third party Storage system when we can easily build our own for about 8-12K depending on how much Flash space we really need. So far my entire expenditure has been around 2800 for the drives and nvme drives. IF this works as planned I will buy a new mobo, and a proper case.

I do have everything up and running now, getting roughly 1200/1400 Mb/s over out 20 Gb network to our Host server, which out performs anything I was expecting. Of course this is big block of data copying not bunch of small files. I am going to copy one of our main SQL Server DB's to it and do a full reindex of it and see what the time frame is. This will give me an idea of the IOPS. Current full index takes 11 hours for a 1.2 TB SQL database.

 

[BigDave]

Thank you BigDave, not married but it did come out of one of our workstations and I this is a proof of concept that we don't need to spend 80K on a high end third party Storage system when we can easily build our own for about 8-12K depending on how much Flash space we really need. So far my entire expenditure has been around 2800 for the drives and nvme drives. IF this works as planned I will buy a new mobo, and a proper case.

I do have everything up and running now, getting roughly 1200/1400 Mb/s over out 20 Gb network to our Host server, which out performs anything I was expecting. Of course this is big block of data copying not bunch of small files. I am going to copy one of our main SQL Server DB's to it and do a full reindex of it and see what the time frame is. This will give me an idea of the IOPS. Current full index takes 11 hours for a 1.2 TB SQL database.

Well in that case, I'm glad you got the Asus board working and can use it for your POC.
You probably already know this, but performance with ZFS will come from creating you pool
using mirrored pairs for your Vdevs. Good luck!