Attempted to move / expand FreeNAS setup, disks not showing up for import

[the4ndy]

So i have FreeNAS 9.10.2 installed and running on a Dell tower server with I believe a Perc 5i RAID card (no SAS backplane) with 3x 2TB HDDs. I have outgrown this hardware and acquired a Dell PowerEdge 2950 6-BAY. My plan is/was to install FreeNAS onto a USB stick plugged into the back of the server (DONE). it installed fine from what i can tell. I can access the web interface, confirmed its up to date, etc. Then I planned/plan to install the 3x 2TB drives from the previous FreeNAS setup, import the zpool or array or whatever its called technically (The pool was ZFS RAIDZ1). After I had imported the 3 drive array/pool I have 2 more 2TB drives that I was planning to add to that existing pool (assuming that is possible, i believe that it is).

Here is where the problem comes in. I cannot see any of the disks in the web interface. If I go to Storage > View Disks, there are no devices listed. If i open a shell and run "camcontrol devlist" i can see all of the 2TB hard drives as well as the CD rom drive and the USB that the OS is installed on.

Unfortunately I am a FreeNAS / FreeBSD noob and am not sure where to go from here. Any ideas?

 

[dlavigne]

Did you import the pool yet using the instructions in http://doc.freenas.org/9.10/storage.html#import-volume?

 

[the4ndy]

Did you import the pool yet using the instructions in http://doc.freenas.org/9.10/storage.html#import-volume?

I did indeed. There are no "volumes" in the drop down on the Second step of "Import Volume".

I tried running "zpool import" and it immediately goes back to the shell prompt
i ran "camcontrol devlist" and i can see all 5 of my disks (the 3 i want to import and then the 2 blank ones i want to add after the old pool is imported)
i can also see the SAS controller as an item in that output, and its at /dev/ses0 but the disks are not listed on any /dev/ location

Code:

<ATA TOSHIBA DT01ACA2 ABB0>		at scbus0 target 0 lun 0 (pass0)			 
<ATA ST2000DL003-9VT1 CC32>		at scbus0 target 1 lun 0 (pass1)			 
<ATA Hitachi HDS72302 AAB0>		at scbus0 target 2 lun 0 (pass2)			 
<ATA Hitachi HUA72202 A20N>		at scbus0 target 3 lun 0 (pass3)			 
<ATA Hitachi HUA72202 A20N>		at scbus0 target 4 lun 0 (pass4)			 
<DP BACKPLANE 1.05>				at scbus0 target 32 lun 0 (pass5,ses0)	   
<TSSTcorp DVD-ROM TS-L333A D250>   at scbus2 target 0 lun 0 (pass6,cd0)		 
<SanDisk Cruzer Blade 1.27>		at scbus4 target 0 lun 0 (pass7,da0)

The drives at pass2, 3, and 4 are the drives with the zfs pool to be imported, pass0 and 1 are new blank 2TB drives, pass5 is the backplane, pass6 the optical drive, and pass7 the USB drive that the OS is installed on.

 

[the4ndy]

I should mention that the RAID card in the new server is a Perc 6i and seems to not support JBOD or AHCI mode. I have also tried using an HP P400 and P410 i had lying around, both of those caused the Dell BIOS and such to hang / freeze (I suspect the non-dell hardware is not appreciated by the server). I am looking to get my hands on a Perc 6/iR that I am told has JBOD and can be used successfully with FreeNAS. If there is anyone that has anything else for me to try, that would be awesome, I would love to get this working with my current gear and not have to wait for the new Perc 6/iR to show up

 

[SweetAndLow]

It's most likely your raid card causing problems. You shouldn't really use raid card because they hide the disks from FreeNAS. A card that can do jbod will probably get you going but really you need a hba card.

You could also put the disks in the old server and make sure they still work.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[the4ndy]

Disks def still work, I will likely through them back into the old server just in the meantime and will confirm they still work there, but I am very confident that the drives are ok as they were pulled from a working unit. As I mentioned, I have a Per 6/iR on the way which is supposed to support JBOD, but being that the PowerEdge 2950 is a 2U rackmount chasis, my options for "custom" or 3rd party HBA cards is limited. I dont know that I would be able to fit a different backplane in the case if it were needed. I also have the HP P400 and P410 that I tried but both of those cause issues when trying to set them up (basically i enter the RAID config util from the boot screen and it will hang when trying to read disks, etc). For these reasons I feel the best bet is to use a piece of hardware that is specific / made for the Dell PowerEdge server. I saw elsewhere on these forums that a user recommended the IBM M1015 card as the best option, but they mentioned that the Backplane and the card arent the same type so a special cable is needed and then i also have the issue of cable routing inside the case (which there are some, but they seem to be too short or too long for the cables and such I have for my other RAID cards).

I guess in short, I am trying to figure out the best way to use my nice 6 bay Poweredge 2950 as my storage server. It has 8 CPU cores acress 2 CPUs, and 16GB of RAM so it should handle FreeNAS with a 6x 2TB ZFS pool nicely (the ultimate goal..first is importing the old pool, then add on to it).

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

Dell Perc SAS 6/iR can be flashed to IT mode, which is what you should do if you plan to use it with FreeNAS. This won't stop it from being obsolete (2TB drive limit).

 

[the4ndy]

In the end, I needed the Perc 6/iR. once i installed it everything worked perfectly. Thanks!