FreeNAS mini and how the build went

[NorCalTechSupport]

Hi group, I have been gone working on other projects and I still love my SuperMicro FreeNAS SAN.

I purchased a pair of FreeNAS mini SANs with 32GB RAM and the optional Read & Write eMLC 128GB SSDs.
It took me 2 or 3 months and a storage emergency for me to start building the first one. First thing to know is the two SSDs are identical so don't worry about which SSD data cable you plug them into. RAM is RAM so I added one new 8GB EEC stick of RAM in each of the two open slots. The instructions that came in the box were bogus as the webpages did not come up and I tried 2 Windows computer an my Mac laptop. After opening the 3rd box with new upgrades I found a 2 page sheet on installing the SSDs and the only thing missing were the power cables for SSDs and a power splitter. Of course I had a Y power splitter and a power to 2 SSDs cable in my server build drawer so the build was easy. The power splitter worked well by pulling the power from the HDD backplane and inserting the splitter. And of course having a power to dual SSD power connectors was a big help.

The four 6TB HDDs have a RAID box attachment on their front and there is a little black button on the right side of each HDD. They are slide to the right buttons not push in hard buttons. Each of the four drives had a number from zero to three so being an anal geek I kept them in order.

On my first boot everything looked good on the attached VGA screen but from my Windows 7 PC only part of the welcome screen came up. The solution was as simple as refreshing my screen. At this point I was jumping for joy. I configured my new storage vault with a FreeNASmini01 name as I presume I may have more than 2 of them if they work as well as my first impressions indicate they will. I setup a Windows CIFS share and mapped it to my backup server. As a good geek I made copies of the Config file and then ran updates and made a second copy of the Config File. Oh no my Alert button on the top right corner went from green to yellow and the alert said it would be a good idea to upgrade to 9.10. The upgrade was easier than falling off of a log. System->Update and select the 9.10-STABLE train from the Train selection drop-down menu. 7 minutes later my FreeNAS mini was running 9.10.1-U4. And the share was still working on my backup server. Then being the geek I am I made another copy of the Config file.

Yea iXsystems, you did good again!

I am uploading a file and it is to illustrate the minor website flaw and the components I used.

 

[wblock]

Awesome! We do have a from-scratch rewrite of that document nearly ready for release which has much better pictures and shorter, clearer text. And fewer URLs, especially broken ones.

Power splitter cables for the SSDs should not be needed, there are already power cables with extra connectors in the right spots. They might be zip-tied out of the way, though.

Thank you!

 

[NorCalTechSupport]

Thanks for the feedback. Admittedly I was exhausted last week while putting together the FreeNAS mini so I came in today fresh after a full nights sleep and shut the mini box down and pulled the case off. To make sure I was seeing everything I had a coworker join and yes we did find 3 power connectors but none would have gone directly to the two SATA drives. I do apologize for saying there were no power adapters available when in fact one of the 3 we found behind a bundle of wire would have been 100% compatible as long as you happen to have a power to dual SATA power cable handy. I will add the new picture with the 3 power connectors but I have not seen any SATA power adapters. In a few hours I will start the build on the 2nd FreeNAS mini I have sitting on the floor of my office and I will check to see if there are SATA power adapters included? I still love my FreeNAS mini box, I was just pointing out what I saw during my build.

 

[wblock]

While looking at the right side of the Mini where the SSDs go, these should be zip-tied to the frame behind those SSD mounting locations.

 

[NorCalTechSupport]

I opened the 2nd FreeNAS mini and right up on top are a pair of SATA power cables. I looked at how the cable was lashed to the top of the frame (not back or side) and then I looked at the first FreeNAS mini and I saw a similar lashing so I pulled up on the cables from where they had been stuffed down and behind the big bundle of cables. So you were correct they were there but they were extremely hard to find. I presume the 2nd FreeNAS mini is how most of your boxes are delivered to the customer. Have a good day.

 

[wblock]

Whew, was starting to doubt my memory for a second there. Thank you for verifying!

 

[NorCalTechSupport]

Okay now a question(s) I hope someone can answer.
I want to use IPMI and I presume that should be the MGMT Ethernet port on the back?
I went into the IPMI setup and filled out all the boxes except VLAN ID as I won't need one at this time.
I left the Channel on 1 and the only other option is 8

I thought about adding an interface under Network/Interface but only two appear and it is my guess these are both regular NIC ports as there are 2 NICS one above the other and the MGMT port sits off to the side. Therefore I did not add any new interfaces.

When I was done I could ping my regular FreeNASmini NIC IP and I could ping the IPMI IP address. Sadly they are both on the same port, I can unplug the MGMT Ethernet and the pings continue. If I unplug the first Ethernet neither IP will ping.

Any ideas wonderful FreeNAS users?
Is there a default username besides root?

The attached picture is where I get to before everything stops.

Thanks all.

 

[NorCalTechSupport]

The answer to getting in to the IPMI login was easy & hard at the same time. I followed the onscreen instructions by clicking the question mark (see attached picture) and I tried and tried with both IE 11 and the newest version of Chrome and I got nowhere. I even changed the password back to admin and got nowhere. I turned my browsers off and did some server work elsewhere in my network. Then when I came back and turned on IE 11 everything just worked. When I log in a popup asks if I want to run a JAVA application so I say yes. All the mac addresses I was wondering about are there. I still have to putter around and check things out but I am just an hour or so away from moving on to setting up my 2nd FreeNAS mini.

As an FYI incase someone finds my post and is wondering about user and password for IPMI? admin/admin ... Make sure you change the password to something big & secure once you get in.