Trouble importing disks now behind a 3ware 9550

[Xcapee]

Hi helpful FreeNAS community.

I've changed my server motherboard and now have my disks hanging off a 3ware 9550sx-8lp, and they don't import.

The 9550 comes up as /dev/twa0. I can see the disks with camcontrol, and smartctl can interrogate them.

In the GUI the disks show as da[0..3], but only come up as 800GB. They're 3TB WD Green, that were given to the GUI on the old system for raidz with the default 2GiB swap.

Any ideas what I need to do to proceed?

 

[cyberjock]

Were they attached to that 3ware controller?

I helped someone setup a server and we tried to use the 3ware controller. It didn't work out too well and we had to get rid of the 3ware and go with an M1015.

It sounds like you are in the same predicment though...

Can you post your server hardware?

 

[Xcapee]

They were attached to previous motherboard directly. No SATA or RAID card.

There are other unformatted disks which the 3Ware sees as full capacity, so I don't think it's an issue with the 3ware, just that the partitions don't seem to be recognised now. It should be in jbod mode but I haven't (yet) worked out how to configure the card. (2nd hand 3ware 9550sx card, 2nd hand socket 775 Intel Server Entry MoBo).

The new motherboard has four sata ports on it was well so worst case, I can get them imported by direct connecting to that. Then do a final backup, and put them back on the 3Ware and then reformat, rebuild, restore. It would be nice however if there was a way to import them while on the 3Ware card.

 

[cyberjock]

Well, I'll say this.. and you can decide how you want to proceed..


Using that 3ware controller is a recipe for disaster. That's why we got rid of the 3ware. It "worked" as in your server will appear to work. But, it is a bad choice for the same reasons we tell people not to use RAID controllers. So if you are hellbent on using it, use it. But, when you lose your data someday expect is to give you a "we told ya so" speech. In short, very very bad choice for a FreeNAS server.

Socket 775 is woefully old. It's a power hog, doesn't support ECC RAM, and is going to be quite slow. In short, very very bad choice for a FreeNAS server.

Additionally, you need 8GB of RAM *minimum* for FreeNAS. The next version of FreeNAS will make you install 8GB of RAM on bootup if you don't have it. Also, 8GB is the minimum.. and building a system that already is at it's maximum hardware limits for the minimum for your OS.. bad choice.

In short, what you are doing is totally against anything we'd ever recommend. Doing this is not recommended and will certainly lead to data loss someday in the future.

 

[Xcapee]

Thanks. That's helpful to hear (even if it's not what I wanted to hear). The MoBo does use ECC RAM, and it does have 8GB RAM. Yes it's slow, and power inefficient. All of that I can live with until I can afford better hardware. Performance needs are very modest. This is an interim build until I can afford a modern MoBo and processor. I'm moving from RAIDZ1 to RAIDZ2.

The one thing that worries me in what you've said is the 3Ware card. Do you have any other info or links on the issues with the 3Ware cards?

 

[cyberjock]

Not really.. we all know better and just tell people don't do it if you care about your data. The manual and my guide has plenty of warnings that using RAID controllers is just asking for trouble.

 

[Xcapee]

Well for closure, and for the benefit of those who might come by later with similar questions, it turns out that while the card does support very plain jbod (no RAID metadata, just passes through raw drives), the 9550 never got a firmware upgrade to support drives > 2TB.

Mystery solved. Looks like I need either a new motherboard or new RAID card. Time to shake the piggy bank and see if I can rattle anything loose.

 

[cyberjock]

Yes, it supports JBOD. It still doesn't properly handle ZFS. So while you are justifying to yourself why it might work if it weren't for the 2TB limit, I still stand by my comment that it's a bad idea. That's also why we dropped $100 that we didn't have on an M1015.

This is the typical response we get from people in the forum... they justify how it would work. We never said it wouldn't work. We just said it was stupid. People aren't drawing the distinction that just because it will work doesn't mean it's smart.