SOLVED Mirroring a Boot Device

[Bjonness406]

Hello

When I am trying to mirror my boot device (so I have 2 boot devices), it will not work.
I get the error message, but I have bought 2 of the same usb sticks. Link to usb stick

Code:

Error: Failed to attach disk: cannot attach da0p2 to gptid/78bb3c4e-094a-11e5-8623-d43d7e9204cb: device is too small

Can someone help me?

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

The two sticks are probably not the exact same size.

Start over:

1. backup your configuration
2. wipe the USB sticks
3. clean install to the smaller
4. mirror to the larger
5. when you have this working, restore your configuration

 

[Bjonness406]

The two sticks are probably not the exact same size.

Start over:

1. backup your configuration
2. wipe the USB sticks
3. clean install to the smaller
4. mirror to the larger
5. when you have this working, restore your configuration

I do backup of the configuration from
1. System > General > Save Config
Or
2. System > Advanced > Backup

I think save config is the right, but just want to be 100% sure so I don't loose any data.

 

[Bidule0hm]

It's option 1 ;)

 

[Bjonness406]

It's option 1 ;)

Thank you, it is working now.

 

[mazab]

Hello,
thats my first question here :)
I have strange - i.e. for my opinion unexpected - behaviour concerning boot device mirroring. My system is a HP Microserver Gen8, which has a USB plug and a Micro SD internally on the mainboard. Unfortunately it is not possible to have both devices the same size. The Micro SD is shown as 32 GB, the USB as 30.something GB. What I did:

1. Partitioned both, Micro SD and USB stick with gparted as "deleted" filesystems and partitioned to the same size (two primary gpt partitions), to be shure that they look fresh and new for FreeNAS. The USB stick was new from the market anyway.
2. I put both devices onto the mainboard and run the installation (mounted FreeNAS-11.1-U2.iso as virtual device with ILO).
3. choosed *both* devices as installation media.
4. replayed my System configuration and - voila - both devices show ab as mirrored freenas-boot with da5p2 (the Micro SD) and da6p2 (the USB)

so far so good, but now to the strange thing:

5. I took a second fresh USB stick of identical type and most likely from the same production batch (the serial numbers are almost the same) and placed into a front USB plug of the server. The stick shows up with the same 30.somthing GB as the first one in the drive list.
6. I tried to replace the first USB (device da6) with the second USB (device da4), but FreeNAS refuses saying the device is to small.

It seemes, that it isn't possible to add a USB to the Micro SD. Is there any possible way to shrink the Micro SD in advance to have it smaller or equal? I'm not shure if the pre partitioning has any effect.
I think the behaviour is a bug. The USBs should be checked as equal by the system if a replace is requested. What the FreeNAS seemes to do is only compare the device-to-take-over with the Micro SD.

Any opinion?

 

[wblock]

Newer bootcode requires more space, so even though the new drive is the same size, it does not have enough space for the needed data partition. We have a bug for clearing up the description of this.

Don't play games with partitioning. The system will automatically create data partitions to fit the smallest device in a mirror. The easiest way to solve the current problem is probably to back up the configuration and install fresh to all three devices as a mirror (just select all three during install). Then restore the configuration.