BUILD Not seeing HDDs with B120i

[olimortimer]

Hi,

I have a HP Micrsoserver Gen 8, and looking to install FreeNAS. I purchased an SSD (RAID0) to run FreeNAS on slot 5, with 4 x 1TB drives (RAID0) in slots 1-4. However, I've recently purchased 4 x HGST 6TB drives, but I'm having trouble seeing them through the controller and FreeNAS, however they do show up in Ubuntu.

I've swapped the 1TB drives for the 6TB drives, but I could not see the 6TB drives through the FreeNAS GUI. I booted into the HP Smart Storage Administrator (F10 during BOOT) for the B120i controller, but couldn't see the 6TB drives either. I tried installing FreeNAS again, but the install couldn't see the 6TB drives.

Originally I had the 1TB drives in slots 1-4, and the B120i saw them fine. I have also tested the 1TB drives during the FreeNAS install, and it seems them ok as well.

I've now disabled the embedded RAID controller, and using the AHCI option instead (slot 5 won't be bootable, but someone recommend I run FreeNAS off a USB instead of the SSD) but still the 6TB drives aren't recognised by FreeNAS.

If I boot Ubuntu on a USB, that sees the 6TB drives during install fine, so I know the drives are ok.

I can't work out where the issue lies, so I'm a bit stumped. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Mihalich]

Firmware Update?

 

[olimortimer]

Through HP Intelligent Provisioning during BOOT, it shows that all the firmware is up to date with what it can find online.

These are the versions shown through iLO:

Firmware Name Firmware Version Location
Dynamic Smart Array B120i Controller 5.50 Embedded
iLO 2.50 Sep 23 2016 System Board
Intelligent Platform Abstraction Data 0.00 System Board
Intelligent Provisioning 1.63.192 System Board
Redundant System ROM J06 11/02/2015 System Board
Server Platform Services (SPS) Firmware 2.2.0.31.2 System Board
System Programmable Logic Device Version 0x06 System Board
System ROM J06 11/02/2015 System Board
System ROM Bootblock 02/04/2012 System Board

 

[nightshade00013]

First off you should never be using anything in a raid configuration with FreeNAS. FreeNAS uses software raid and combining the two is bad juju.

From what I can gather with a quick google search it's not FreeNAS it's the controller. https://www.google.com/search?num=5...k1j0i20i263k1j0i22i30k1j33i21k1.0.qLTc8d2_6JY

Seems that the software in the controller basically has a type of self destruct once a drive gets to a certain size and quantity. You may be able to get two to work but adding more than that seems to be an issue. Sounds like they did the same thing a lot of OEM's due when it comes to ram and put a limit on what you can do even though it can easily support more. It forces you to upgrade to a new system and tends to make them money.

If this is the case your best bet would be to grab a HBA of some sort that has an IT mode and move away from the controller that is on board.

 

[olimortimer]

Even if I only have 1 x 6TB plugged in, neither the controller nor FreeNAS can see them, yet Ubuntu install sees them fine, even when all 4 x 6TB are plugged in. I set the controller to AHCI rather RAID, and still the same - only Ubuntu can see the 6TB drives.

 

[Mihalich]

Have you checked if there is a compatibility list for your device?

 

[olimortimer]

So in the end I noticed that 3 out of the 4 drives were clicking loudly whenever the server tried to access them - something I didn't notice before as I always installed them then powered up etc remotely. Although this isn't the reason why the server couldn't see them (except for Ubuntu install), and they worked fine (although clicking) when I installed them in a caddy and accessed them on my Mac, I quickly sent them back and received a full refund. A bit of a saving grace really.

So the confusion still lies as to why the server / controller can't see the HGST 6TB drives. I know others have run 6TB drives in the server ok (ie the WD Red 6TB), so maybe the issue lies with this particular brand rather than the size of the disks. Going forward, I'm going to research 100% supported drives, even if it means downgrading to 4TB, to ensure I don't run into this issue again. Any suggestions would be great.

 

[KrisBee]

While a definitive statement about the max hdd size supported by the HP microserver gen8 is surprisingly elusive, I’ve always thought that configuring the Smart Array B120i RAID controller as you described was relying on a software quirk. Creating a single RAID0 on a slot 5 disk may allow it to boot, but just how will the OS treat the other drives, will they operate in true AHCI mode or not? For FreeNAS it must be true AHCI mode.

So as you say you had (or have?) this arrangement working with 4 x 1TB drives, it would have been interesting to compare the FreeNAS boot logs/messages, the “camcontrol devlist” & smartctl info when the HP gen8 is configured to boot from your SSD and when it booted from a usb stick with the SATA Controller set to AHCI.

As far as the 6TB drives were concerned, why Ubuntu should see them and FreeNAS not is a bit of a mystery, but any dmesg output may have given a clue.

I’m not sure what your motivation was for trying to boot from a ssd in slot 5 as opposed to just using a usb stick. Better reliability, I suppose, is the argument, but it’s doesn’t take account of the microserver’s boot limitations. In Linux you can get grub to boot from a usb stick but have the OS on a disk in slot 5 while configuring the sata controller in AHCI mode. I’ve never seen anyone trying to do the equivalent in FreeNAS, but it might be feasible if you were using FreeBSD.

In the absence of knowing for sure what the HDD size limit is, WD RED 4TB are a safe bet. Otherwise it’s trial and error with one WD RED 6TB.