Help! ZFS Volume Creation Fails, Causes Server Reboot

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Hi all,

This one has me a bit stumped. First, my server:
- HP ML350 G5 server, single Quad-core 2.33 Ghz Xeon Processor
- Boots from internal 8Gb USB flash drive
- 16 Gb DDR2 ECC RAM
- 4x 160Gb 7200k SATA HD's, RAID 5 (480Gb volume)
- 2x 146Gb 15k SAS HD's, RAID 0 (293.6 Gb volume)
- External USB JBOD with 1x 2Tb, 2x 1Tb, 1x 500 Gb

Creating volumes from the JBOD was a snap. All volume creation proceeded normally.

I tried to create a combined ZFS volume from the 2 SAS drive volumes, which caused a server reboot. I then tried creating separate ZFS volumes from each SAS volume and all attempts resulted in server reboots. The 4x 160 Gb SAS drive's LED's now flash simultaneously and continuously, slightly faster than once per second, even after a hard boot. The 2x 146 Gb drive's LED's stay continuously lit (normal).

The 160Gb SAS drives were previously, until this afternoon, the sole drives on the system and worked normally. Both SAS volumes show up in the ZFS volume manager, so they look normal and available to the server. Does anyone have any thoughts on this and what my next troubleshooting step(s) should be?
 
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Ok, found the answer. ZFS doesn't like a hardware RAID as it wants full access to the drives. It's been suggested that setting each drive to RAID 0 should fix things. I'll give that a go and see what happens. If it works I'll mark this topic as "solved".
 
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...and setting each drive to RAID 0 via the controller and letting ZFS deal with configuring them also failed with a system crash and reboot.
 

gpsguy

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Either switch to UFS with your hardware RAID, or switch controllers.

The IBM 1015, flashed to IT mode, is a popular FreeNAS compatible HBA. They can be found on eBay for ~$100 US.
 

cyberjock

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As gpsguy said. Doing RAID0s of individual disks is dangerous for your data. Don't do it. Of course, its not working for you anyway. Just get an M1015 and then your problems will likely be solved.
 
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Thanks gpsguy and cyberjock. I appreciate the info. Also thanks, cyberjock, for the PowerPoint presentation that you put together. It's extremely helpful and exactly the sort of info I wish I had found a week ago. I'll spend some time carefully going over it.

Cheers!
 
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