Dell Poweredge R720XD initial boot truenas12 issues

[Matt Rupert]

Hello Forum,

This is my first time building a TrueNas/FreeNas server. Been on my list for years and finally pulled the trigger.

So I have lots of familiarity with desktop machines and building them. The server is new for me. As I power it up it take forever to post and get itself into a run state. I dont know if there are ways to speed this up. Is that kind of behavior normal?

But not my main issue. I have worked though the install instruction. I was able to reflash the H710 raid controller, and then install the TrueNas12 from the USB drive to the rear mounted SSD. In order to get the USB with the Truenas install on it to boot I had to switch the machine from BIOS mode the the UEFI. This I though to be weird as I had no problems being in Bios mode when I ran the freedos and linux raid reflash programs. From the installation instructions for the first time install it claims that on older hardware the BIOS mode is what you should be using. Do I need to correct something here? At this point I think I Have TrueNas installed onto the SSD mounted in the rear of the machine. Though I cant get it to boot at all. Its like it does not see the drive at this point. I have tried both Bios as well as UEFI mode. Has anyone else with one of these old servers had this issue and recall how to get around this or can recommend things to go back and recheck or redo.

The machine is a 12 bay front and 2 bay rear Dell Poweredge 720xd.
I have 2 of the E5-2670 - 2.60GHz 8 Core cpus, 32GB ECC ram, 7 hgst Megascale 4TB drives.

Thank you for the help!!
Matt

 

[JohnDigital]

Youll want to use legacy BIOS mode for booting/installing. Is this SSD running out of a SATA port or off of the HBA? Use a MB SATA port if possible and set it to boot first, if you have not already.

It can take a minute for a proper server to boot. There are things to speed it up. RAM test takes a minute, PXE boot, HBA BIOS, etc. Turn all of those off and enable any kind of Quick Boot you might see. Also make your TrueNAS SSD the first boot device.

 

[Matt Rupert]

Hello John,

Thank you for the response.

Im not sure if the SSD is running out of sata ports. How would I check? When installing the TN12 software the installer found the SSD as well as my other 7 installed hgst drives. But does that mean anything as far as the bios goes when trying to boot?

As far as which sata port is being used, I think the rear bays are connected with a cable right down to the motherboard, but Ill double check that. Hopefully its possible to get in there and do that and the cabling infrastructure is there.

Ill look into turning off things to increase the boot speed, at least until I get this thing up and running. I did located the means to turn off the network boot which it was trying to do and was taking some time.

Ill repost with what I can find.

Thanks again for your help!!
Matt

 

[Matt Rupert]

Hello John,

So upon further looking I do see that the circuit board that connected the two rear drives are attached to the H710 raid controller card. The raid controller that is now in IT mode. There are 2 sata connectors on the MB that I think are for the other models of this server that have the front facing cdrom drive. I cant access those since the boot drive is plugged in to the 2.5inch rear facing caddie which are connected via the custom controller board for those two rear facing caddies. See the photo. So the bottom line is that I have everything plugged into the raid controller essentially. With it in IT mode I cant find a screen that even sees a any of the disks. Im guessing the Truenas installed has a driver to access the IT mode H710 to see the disks and install to one of them. Any idea how I get the mother board to see these drives at this point? There appears to be no other sata connector for the custom pcb that goes into the rear facing drive bays.

Thank you for help!!
Matt

 

[JohnDigital]

Yeah, you'll want to use a standard sata and sata power to power up that SSD, you don't want it connected to the HBA.

 

[Matt Rupert]

Thanks John.

Yeah I have been thinking about this over night and I think your right. Im guessing that my reflashing of the raid controller to IT mode essentially hid the drives on the back plane from the bios. So what Im thinking of doing is getting a pci to M2 2280 type of card and add a m.2 like drive to the machine. I think this will be a cleaner installation and dont have to try and mount the drive in the machine in a weird way non standard way.

So Ill have to wait until Monday before this stuff arrives. Fingers crossed.

Maybe you can answer another question for me. On the pci card and ssd I have linked there. The ssd has two cuts in the edge connector. I think on the pci card there are call outs of key types B and M. What is the difference in these two connector types? Does one mean that it is pci compatible vs the other that is ssd compatible only?

Thanks again for the help and comments John!!!
Matt

 

[JohnDigital]

I'm pretty sure its to prevent installing in the wrong type of slot. The drive you show is a B+M hence the two slots in the connector. This should be ok for you. On this particular card one slot is for nvme and one for sata. The drive itself will go in either one.

I'd try it in the nvme slot first, whether it will boot of not depends on the bios likely. If it won't boot from nvme you'll have to put it in the ssd slot and run a cable from the card to a sata port.

 

[JohnDigital]

With all that said ssds are A. Light, and B. Have no moving parts, I have some 3M double tape and stick ssds to things convenient. Usually the 3.5" drive cage in the case. In my own machines I just leave it hanging not attached to anything usually, lol. This being a server case there has to be lots of places to stash a standard ssd and cable. Is there a free sata style power connector in the case and do you have a regular sata cable?

Just a thought to save you from wasting a few bucks.

 

[Matt Rupert]

Thank you John!!!
Have great weekend!!

 

[Matt Rupert]

Yeah there are several places in the case I could secure with tape an ssd, but my biggest issue is the power or lack of power cables. I cant find a 5 volt power connector to provide 5 volts for the ssd. I have no issue making a cable if I know where to get it from and off of what connector. This dell server has largely only what it needs and not much extra. There are connectors for providing gnd and 12vdc, but I dont see a 5 volts on the identifiable connectors. So with the card mounted on the pci it will be able to tap the power it needs from the pcie slot.
Thanks again John!!

 

[JohnDigital]

Yeah, then the PCIe adapter card is a great solution. You'll be ok. Let me know how it turns out!

 

[JohnDigital]

What about where a CDrom drive "would" go? There would have to be a power connector for that no?

 

[Matt Rupert]

This particular version of the R720 has no cdrom. 12 front facing 3.5in drives. There are cables that come up off the MB to the rear backplane. There is of course no documentation on what those do. But yeah I agree there should be 5 volts available somewhere.

 

[ronclark]

Yeah, you'll want to use a standard sata and sata power to power up that SSD

FYI on the 720XD the sata ports are disabled, I sorta learned that after i got my 720XD can could not for the life of me figure out why the drive would not show up

 

[JohnDigital]

That's a strange one.. Anyways, good luck.

 

[Matt Rupert]

Hello RonClark,

How did you resolve booting then?

Thanks
Matt

 

[ronclark]

So I have lots of familiarity with desktop machines and building them. The server is new for me. As I power it up it take forever to post and get itself into a run state. I dont know if there are ways to speed this up. Is that kind of behavior normal?

Yes

Hello RonClark,

How did you resolve booting then?

Thanks
Matt

So your trying to use the rear 2.5 Flex bays, thats connected to the H710 HBA. Do you know if you have the Bios rom installed on the H710 when you flashed the H710? if so check out this video Help! I can't get into the LSI BIOS ROM SAS configuration utility | How to fix

My R720XD is setup in UEFI mode, I have a sata m.2 drive on a ubs adapter installed in the usb port by the power supplies,
Here is a link to the adapter, the drive is 128g M+B key i got off ebay.
Here is a 2.5 to USB adapter, I have not tested it, but it should work for the USB port on the MB.

My plan is to use the Flex bays at some point for some kind of cache

 

[Matt Rupert]

Good Morning Gentleman,

So I have tried the adapter and the SSD. Both slots failed. When in the PCIe slot in riser 3 the machine give me a PCIe Error warning and halts the system. Im guessing the bios does not like the ssd or something. I then move the ssd to the other slot and plugged into the Sata that went into the MB. This also failed, as RonClark said the sata are disabled. This is annoying. So to the best of everyone knowledge is there a way to turn on the sata interfaces? Maybe a jumper or bios setting somewhere?

Ron, when I flashed the H710 to IT mode, I was not sure if the bios rom was installed on that h710 card. How can I tell? I did remove the batteries before doing it. Honestly the card looks to be completely smt and I didn't see anything that looked like it was socketed. What should I be looking for to tell if the bios rom was installed?

So following the procedure in the like you sent. What will that be reestablishing the lsi bios rom? Is that not the firmware that needed to be removed for IT mode on the controller?

How will the UEFI mode be different than bios mode? It is like a little OS that is for booting and puts a small partition on the boot disk somewhere? Will it interfere with Truenas?

Thank you both for the help!!
Matt

 

[Dan Tudora]

Ron, when I flashed the H710 to IT mode, I was not sure if the bios rom was installed on that h710 card

hello
basic diagnostic about bios rom on HBA is simple
if you "see" your HDD after the server POST (after the POST and initialize HBA) you have biosrom installed

if you "not see" I mean something like WDxxx or your "code" for ssd installed in system you have not biosrom insstalled and you will see that hdd/ssd will see in install screen of TrueNAS
BUT was not be exposed to the bios server to boot from

why you do not try a USB to SATA for ssd boot ??
cherss

 

[Matt Rupert]

Hello John and Ron,

So I have ordered a usb to n.2 connector. Ill give that a shot. I really want to try and get a cleaner solution if possible. Though I may give up and just do with the usb. Using an SSD though a older usb seems like a horrible waist of a ssd as far as boot speed goes. Ill dig into the LSI bios reflashing next.

Thank you both!!
Matt