Problem detecting 5 hard drives

[N1k0_VE]

So I build my setup. I have a motherboard with 6 sata connections. I added 5 WD red drives and 1 SSD to run the freenas software. And installing the software from a USB thumb stick.
The problem I have is that one of the 5 wd red drives is not recognized by freenas.
But in the bios my 5 drives and the ssd are available. Even when installing freenas and on the drive selection screen all my 5 drives are available including the SSD. But when everything is installed and the server is running, when I open freenas on another PC in the browser and I go through the wizard it only detects 4 wd red drives and 1 SSD and not my 5th wd red. So I can't build my raid with 5 drives. any help would be appreciated. cause I'm stuck and don't know what the problem is. Also my bios is set on achi.


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[gpsguy]

Please provide detailed hardware information, per the forum rules in red at the top of the page.

On some motherboards, the SATA ports might use different controllers. For example an Intel and a Marvell. The latter might be flaky.

But, we don't know what you have.

 

[N1k0_VE]

I'm using for motherboard an MSI 970A-G43. Have 5 WD Red 3 TB drives and one OCZ agility 120GB SSD. CPU is an FX4300 AM3+. Power supply Corsair vs450


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[BigDave]

As you are probably already aware, your hardware is not recommended for FreeNAS :(
Having said that, it seems your desktop board has a SB950 chipset and all 6 of the SATA ports
are on that controller. First you must eliminate some of the more common possibilities.

1. Bad SATA cable - diagnosed by switching or replacement of data cables.
   
2. Bad SATA port - plug your boot drive into each port, see if it works/boots.
3. If the ports ok and the data cable is ok, put the bad drive in your desktop

and run some SMART tests on it, it may be a dud.

 

[N1k0_VE]

Sorry kinda new to FreeNas. didn't know my hardware isn't recommended. Why is that? because I chose AMD instead of intel? Any recommendation what I should have picked then? Any help is appreciated


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[BigDave]

Have a good read of this forums stickied threads,
they contain a wealth of great information to make
your experience much less frustrating. Start with
this link below. You may find more under my Show
Useful Links in my signatue below.

Hardware Recommendations: Read This First

 

[BigDave]

I'm not trying to discourage you at all, play with your hardware, study/read,
have fun, ask questions. But above all, learn to help yourself by soaking up
the information provided in this forum. If you are a visual learner, keep
going as you are. Right now you may have a bad drive that needs an RMA,
as you're waiting for the replacement, take two drives, build a mirrored pool
with them and play. Just don't make the mistake of loading a bunch of
important files on the machine right off the get go, you're not ready yet.

 

[N1k0_VE]

Thx for the link. will be reading it. do have a question with the problem of he controllers. Would it be possible to connect hard drives with a sata to internal usb cable instead of the sata port on the motherboard?


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[gpsguy]

Try changing the cable first or connect it to the port used by the SSD. Just doing some basic testing.


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[BigDave]

For FreeNAS, the only thing you can hook to USB without major issues is a thumbdrive for a boot device.
The link I provided touches on this.

 

[N1k0_VE]

Ok will try basic testing with other ports. But it's just weird to me that the bios and even the freenas installer detects all hard drives. Just the software when the server is running doesn't.


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[gpsguy]

I'm sorry, I just re-read your message. I *thought* I read that it was detected by the BIOS, but not by FreeNAS.

Let's try this instead. Rather than using the wizard, what if you skip it and try doing it from the volume manager.

 

[BigDave]

Have 5 WD Red 3 TB drives

Are these 5 disk drives new/unformatted or used/formatted?
The reason behind this question is that FreeNAS will not consider the use of a drive
(for pool formation) it has deemed to have been in use in a previous pool.
(A safeguard thing it happens to have built in)
Folks have run into this before and the fix is to zero out the drive to get it back to unformatted condition.

 

[N1k0_VE]

Got it working. for some reason freenas was installed on one of the wd red drives instead of the SSD. I clearly selected the SSD in the installer. What I did was plug out alle the WD reds from the motherboard, install freenas on the SSD and when installed plugged back in the WD Red drives. Now I'm up and running Freenas. Configuring everything as I'm typing this :)


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[N1k0_VE]

Everything is working like a charm. Haven't had any further problems configuring whatsoever


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