install FreeNAS on SSD, but don't use whole disks

[rolandk]

hello,

I have a nas box with multiple slots and there are two 160GB SSDs inside.

I would like to install FreeNAS as a mirrored setup on the 2 disks, but don't want the disks to be used completely for the FreeNAS system.

How can I tell the FreeNAS installer not to use the whole disks?

thank you!

regards
roland

 

[m0nkey_]

how can i tell the freenas installer not to use the whole disks?

You don't. FreeNAS installation will use the whole drive.

 

[gpsguy]

You can't. FreeNAS runs as an appliance and expects to run on its own device. Should the device fail, it's easy to recover. Just install a new boot device and restore your configuration (that you should have backed up).

If you don't have spare ports for a small SSD to boot from, consider installing FreeNAS on a pair of mirrored flash drives.

 

[rolandk]

I don't simply want to waste two whole 160GB SSDs for this, I'd like to use remaining SSD space for ZIL/SLOG or L2ARC or whatever else.

the system has only two USB ports. One is occupied for keyboard and the other one has the installation cd-rom drive attached

come on, there is no bootparam, envvar or gui-override to tell the installer to create a smaller freebsd-zfs partition of arbitrary size?

is there a bugtracker where i can put in a feature request?

 

[wblock]

It sounds like you want to use part of an SSD as a cache for itself, which of course is slower than just using it for storage.

Maybe that's a misunderstanding, and those SSDs will be boot drives. Yes, that will waste some space on them, although it could also be considered overprovisioning. If the unused space is a serious concern, get smaller SSDs and use the 160G ones for something else. Hard to estimate whether that is worth the effort.

No, partitioning the SSDs and using the extra for L2ARC or SLOG is unlikely to be worthwhile. L2ARC is not going to help unless you have added all the RAM the system will hold and it needs more. SLOG is unlikely to help unless you have lots of synchronous writes, and sharing a device for that is specifically not recommended. Also, SLOG requires a specific type of SSD, not just any generic SSD.

 

[gpsguy]

Feel feee to use a different OS if you don't like FreeNAS' architecture.

Sure, you can submit feature requests at bugs.freenas.org. But the ticket will get closed with "working as expected" or something similar. Please read the docs.

 

[rolandk]

Pardon, but you sound a little bit harsh/rude to me.

I'm not criticising FreeNAS or questioning architecture - I'm just asking for an option or for additional configuration flexibility - for which I'm not yet convinced that my question is dumb or not worth thinking about.

There is nothing on the SSD's besides the OS for now. I think it's a waste of resources, using 1GB of 160GB.

I simply want to make use of something existing and do not want to buy anything additional because some installer containing

gpart add -t freebsd-zfs -a 4k -i 2 $WHOLE-SIZE-OF-DISK ${_disk} instead of gpart add -t freebsd-zfs -a 4k -i 2 $OPTIONALLY-ASK-USER-FOR-PARTITION-SIZE ${_disk}

 

[gpsguy]

I apologize if I sound rude.

FreeNAS is designed to be an appliance which the vendor (iXsystems) wants control of what should be in the boot device.

If you want to add a pkg that FreeNAS doesn't include- you need to put it in a jail or a VM. If you put it in the base OS, it will probably be lost on an upgrade and/or restart.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

the system has only two USB ports. One is occupied for keyboard and the other one has the installation cd-rom drive attached

USB hub?

i think it's a waste of resources, using 1GB of 160GB

Me too, but that's a self-imposed problem. Why are you determined to mirror two oversized SSDs for the boot device? Just use one, and make sure you always have a backup of your configuration, for quick, easy recovery. Or, buy an inexpensive, smaller capacity SSD better suited for the purpose.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Installs use the entire disk and should not be shared with other things.

You will not benefit from a slog or l2arc unless you are running a specific workload.

Please start every post with FreeNAS version and hardware specs, that is part of the rules here.

No one is being rude they are just telling you how it is. Now if what they say isn't the answer you want you might see it as rude.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[pschatz100]

I don't simply want to waste two whole 160GB SSDs for this, I'd like to use remaining SSD space for ZIL/SLOG or L2ARC or whatever else.

the system has only two USB ports. One is occupied for keyboard and the other one has the installation cd-rom drive attached

What kind of a system has just two usb ports? Are there additional usb headers on the motherboard that are not being connected? It is difficult to offer suggestion without an understanding of your hardware.

Anyway, you really only need the keyboard and cd-rom for initial installation. You could connect them through a usb hub attached to one usb port and use a flash drive in the other usb port for the OS. Once the initial setup is completed, you would remove the keyboard and cd-rom then continue configuration of your system via the web gui (which would also allow you to mirror your flash boot drive if you wanted to do so - highly recommended.)