Unable to GPT format the disk "ada0"

[Danemj3]

So I am very new to FreeNAS and have already found an error that I cant seem to figure out myself. I installed FreeNAS on a bootable usb and it boots up just fine. When I go to the webgui and then go to volume manager and try to add a volume I get the error in the title. Also if I try to wipe the disk in FreeNAS I get a "Input/output error 1+0 records in 0+0 records 0 bytes transferred in .4 seconds."

I obviously googled this issue and saw that there were plenty of others going through this same thing. I tried many of their solutions and nothing seemed to work. This included a third part wipe by gparted and then tried again to create volume on FreeNAS, and got the same error. I was hoping there was some data I could post here that would help someone know what was causing these problems and then in turn help me.

I just bought all my parts for this, so everything in brand new. I can post all the components if necessary. Let me know what else I need to post as well. Thank you.

 

[Ericloewe]

You sure you wiped the drive more or less thoroughly? Try wiping it completely.

Might as well post your hardware, too.

 

[Danemj3]

I have gparted up right now, and I only have one drive attached, which is my 4th drive. I right click it and click format to ntfs. it then completes successfully and says 3.64 unused. I have also deleted everything there and created a fresh partition in gparted too, niether worked.

Hardware:
HD: Seagate Desktop HDD.15 ST4000DM000 4TB 5900 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
MB: MSI H61M-P31/W8 LGA 1155 Intel H61 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
CPU: Intel Pentium G2030 Ivy Bridge Dual-Core 3.0GHz LGA 1155 55W BX80637G2030 Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics
Ram: 1600Mhz Kingston DDR3 4GB

 

[SweetAndLow]

Don't format it just wipe it. FreeNAS does the safe thing and if it sees a formatted filesystem it doesn't overwrite it.

 

[Danemj3]

So on gparted just delete the partition and leave it unallocated? and sorry for the noob type questions but Id rather be sure, and thank you for the feedback

edit: just deleted it and left it unallocated and then went back to FreeNAS and got the same error message when in volume manager.

edit2: and after I try and it fails the drive is not longer accessible by freenas and i have to reboot it to try anything again with the drive.

 

[cyberjock]

You have 4GB of RAM. That's 1/2 the minimum spec.


Anyone with 1000+ posts surprised? Me neither.

 

[rogerh]

Edit: Also, my small amount of research from the FreeNAS wiki said ram to tb is 1:1 when the system is under 8tb, but what do I know right?

I haven't read it, but what it ought to have said is 1GB per TB of disk when the system is over 8TB; and you don't have to take that literally as you can probably use somewhat over 8TB of disks with only 8GB of RAM fairly safely; but not less RAM.

Now you have got 8GB I am sure the experts here (of which I am not one) will feel it more profitable to try and help.

You could try another disk if you have one, to see if it is some kind of configuration or hardware issue, or a problem with that particular disk. Or you could try "smartctl -t /dev/ada0" followed by "smartctl -a /dev/ada0" to see if there is anything obviously wrong. The only way I know to completely wipe the disk is to write zeroes to the raw device with dd, but with this new-fangled GPT I don't know quite how much of the disk you have to wipe. It was simpler with MBR.

 

[Danemj3]

Thanks roger, honestly. But I figured it out, another forum gave me the solution, and it was without and banter.
I know it's common courtesy to post what solved it, but I think I'm still a bit bitter. So if anyone needs the answer, they can PM me.

 

[danb35]

As cyberjock said, you have half the minimum required RAM. Whatever source suggested that 1 GB RAM / 1 TB of disk space was adequate, with no lower bound, was either misunderstood by you or incorrect--the minimum for FreeNAS 9.3 is 8 GB of RAM. It's known to behave unpredictably when less than that is installed. But rather than recognizing that you've received valuable feedback that could greatly help the stability of your system and security of your data, you decide to get "a bit bitter" instead.

I'm glad your system seems to be working now. It is still inadequate to safely run FreeNAS unless you've expanded the RAM to at least 8 GB. The fact that it isn't using ECC is also a risk to the integrity of your data, but that's a separate issue.

 

[Danemj3]

Ya it's just all about presentation, I would prefer to have cake on a plate rather than thrown in my face.
And my bitterness wasn't without cause, and the cause wasn't my doing.
But thanks for the cake in my face, I suppose it was better than it being just told to me like a normal person.

 

[cyberjock]

The cause WAS your doing.

If you've read ANY of our documentation (not from some other webpage, friends, etc.) you'd know our stance. Sorry, but I have little sympathy for people that either didn't read our documentation or chose to ignore some part of it.

You should NOT be using any kind of OS (or even software) without knowing what the minimum requirements are (and making sure you meet them).

The first question asked when someone is introduced to a new software package or OS should be "what are the minimum specs".