Boot volume critical alert

[mrgerbik]

Hey everybody,

I started receiving emails last night with the message: The boot volume state is UNAVAIL: One or more devices are faulted in response to IO failures.

I'm new to FreeNAS and have a new machine which has only been running a couple days. I'm running FreeNAS 11 RC1. I haven't been using the system much at all, mostly just using the webgui to configure the relevant settings for my needs (scrub and smart schedules, make a volume and smb share, test different user access to share and permissions on different machines...). These emails started shortly after receiving the daily run and security run output emails. I've restarted the machine and have not received any emails regarding the boot volume state in about 30 minutes whereas I was being sent the critical alert emails every few minutes. Under System->Boot, the boot volume condition reads healthy.

Reading other posts on the forum, it seems it's possible that the boot drive is failing which would be lame since it's brand new. From what I've read I would expect something like The boot volume state is DEGRADED if that were the case.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Hardware
Gigabyte GA-X150M-PRO ECC
Intel G3950
Kingston 16 GB ECC
8x WD 4 TB
ADATA Elite S102 Pro 16 GB (boot volume plugged into motherboard USB3 port)

 

[m0nkey_]

Some USB drives perform better than others on FreeNAS. The recommended drives are the SanDisk Ultra Fit, they're usually on Amazon for $10 each. Get two of them and set-up a mirrored boot. To do this, when installing FreeNAS select all the boot drives in the installer, it'll create a mirror automatically.

 

[DrKK]

Both "UNAVAIL" and "DEGRADED" are similar messages. Here is the official docs on specifically what they mean:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/819-5461/6n7ht6r01/index.html

Typically speaking, the longevity of lower-quality USB thumb drives as boot devices is poor in FreeNAS. We have had the best success with Sandisk Ultra Fit, as m0nkey has said, but we do recommend two of them. (You will select both at installation time).

Also, for the record, that board you are using is not a server board. It is a fancy workstation board; I hope you did not buy it specifically for FreeNAS, we would not have generally recommended it.

 

[danb35]

...or just get a small SSD and install to that. Faster and more reliable, though it will require a SATA port.

 

[mrgerbik]

Thanks for the advice and info everyone. I ended up ordering 2 of the SanDisk Ultra Fit but I'm considering returning them to get an SSD.

The "UNAVAIL" emails have not occurred since the first instance but a possibly related issue was that the console was displaying output that my boot volume was being disconnected. This happened on two or three occasions without receiving any "UNAVAIL" emails. I switched USB ports using the same boot device as before and no emails or console output about a disconnect, so this may be a resolution to the issue.

My mobo BIOS has an option about which USB ports, if any, to be used to boot from. Even though I have the option set to enable all ports, I wonder if I had chosen a port which would be disabled if I had set the option to only enable certain ports for boot and somehow my board doesn't like an OS to be run continuously from one of these ports. Seems far fetched though.

Anyhow, thanks again to all.

 

[mrgerbik]

Looks like the issue was indeed the USB drive. I tried a different drive and haven't had any issues with disconnects or "UNAVAIL".

...or just get a small SSD and install to that. Faster and more reliable, though it will require a SATA port.

I'd like to go the SSD route but using a 120 GB drive seems less than ideal since I'd only get to use about a tenth of that space. On the other hand, it looks like getting a used drive of smaller capacity be had for somewhat less but I may be trading off the reliability I'm looking for. If anyone would like to share their experience with smaller and/or used SSDs I'd appreciate it. Am I correct in assuming that most would just go for a 120 GB SSD?

On the issue of requiring a SATA port for the SSD, my mobo has 6 and I have an H310 I flashed to IT mode. Would it be recommended to run the SSD (boot drive) from a mobo SATA port as opposed to through the H310? And a related question, since I have more than 5 storage drives, what would be the recommended configurations for the ports I use? Running them all through the H310 or is splitting between H310 and the mobo an acceptable practice?

 

[danb35]

If anyone would like to share their experience with smaller and/or used SSDs I'd appreciate it.

My "production" machine uses a 120 GB SSD, since I had one laying around when I built it. My test machine (which I was using to test FN10) boots from a 30 GB SSD I bought from eBay (though I'm 99% sure it was new, or at least marked as new). Anything over about 30 GB is overkill, but the difference might not matter much (if at all). A DOM is another option, and they're readily available in smaller sizes, but they tend to be expensive.

Running them all through the H310 or is splitting between H310 and the mobo an acceptable practice?

Splitting them is perfectly acceptable. I'm not doing that now, but I was on my last box, and had no trouble at all with it.