How to Convert exFat to ZFS in TrueNAS 13

[KurtM]

I'm new to TrueNAS, and trying not to fumble around too much.
I have an external RAID case with five 2TB SSD. Originally, I wanted to use the case with all five drives independent, to allow TrueNAS to handle the RAID, but only ONE of the five drives showed inside of TrueNAS, while all five showed up when connected to a Windows box. So I configured my drive case to hardware RAID 5. When I connected the case to my TrueNAS system (USB) the drives wouldn't show in import or anywhere I looked, so I tried connecting it to one of my Windows machines and formatted it as exFAT. Then I reconnected it to my TrueNAS box and it shows up.
My question is how do I reformat that exFAT to ZFS inside of TrueNAS. I can't find the answer anywhere.

 

[Samuel Tai]

First, please disable the hardware RAID5.

What's all the noise about HBA's, and why can't I use a RAID controller?

This is relevant to FreeNAS and TrueNAS CORE. Some parts of it might also be relevant to Scale, but I don't really know how reliable the Linux drivers are. 1) An HBA is a Host Bus Adapter. This is a controller that allows SAS and SATA devices to be attached to, and communicate directly with...

www.truenas.com

Next, TrueNAS expects bare drives without any partitioning. You can run gpart destroy -F /dev/dax to delete the partition table on each drive.

 

[KurtM]

First, please disable the hardware RAID5.

What's all the noise about HBA's, and why can't I use a RAID controller?

This is relevant to FreeNAS and TrueNAS CORE. Some parts of it might also be relevant to Scale, but I don't really know how reliable the Linux drivers are. 1) An HBA is a Host Bus Adapter. This is a controller that allows SAS and SATA devices to be attached to, and communicate directly with...

www.truenas.com

Next, TrueNAS expects bare drives without any partitioning. You can run gpart destroy -F /dev/dax to delete the partition table on each drive.

Samuel, thanks for your prompt reply.
My one question is inre: the issue of only ONE of the five drives in my case showing in TrueNAS, and how do I get around that?

 

[Samuel Tai]

Please provide details of your external enclosure, and how you connect it to TrueNAS.

 

[winnielinnie]

the issue of only ONE of the five drives in my case showing in TrueNAS, and how do I get around that?

The enclosure might be presenting the same serial # for all the drives, and hence can only read the first drive in the external bay.

Regardless, even if you get it working, it can cause some major issues having 5 devices being accessed by ZFS over a single USB connection...

 

[KurtM]

Please provide details of your external enclosure, and how you connect it to TrueNAS.

It's a Yottamaster PS500RU3 with USB 3.0 connection which connects directly to the PC running TrueNAS

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[Samuel Tai]

Thanks. According to https://yottamaster.com/shop?goods_id=91, the PS500RU3 uses a JMicron JMB575 port multiplier. Unfortunately, this is a multiplexer, so only a single drive is active at any one time, which is why TrueNAS can't see the other drives.

Multiply your problems with SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers

In the last year or two, we've had a resurgence of users asking about SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers. Please, do NOT use port multipliers, and use cheap SATA controllers only after extensive research. SATA controllers and SATA...

www.truenas.com

In short, your enclosure won't work with TrueNAS, and combining downstream disks into a RAID volume is a recipe for losing data with ZFS.

 

[KurtM]

Thanks. According to https://yottamaster.com/shop?goods_id=91, the PS500RU3 uses a JMicron JMB575 port multiplier. Unfortunately, this is a multiplexer, so only a single drive is active at any one time, which is why TrueNAS can't see the other drives.

Multiply your problems with SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers

In the last year or two, we've had a resurgence of users asking about SATA Port Multipliers and cheap SATA controllers. Please, do NOT use port multipliers, and use cheap SATA controllers only after extensive research. SATA controllers and SATA...

www.truenas.com

In short, your enclosure won't work with TrueNAS, and combining downstream disks into a RAID volume is a recipe for losing data with ZFS.

That's what I was afraid of. Are there any inexpensive 5 bay external enclosures on Amazon that doesn't use a multiplexer, so I can keep all the drives together?

 

[Samuel Tai]

That's what I was afraid of. Are there any inexpensive 5 bay external enclosures on Amazon that doesn't use a multiplexer, so I can keep all the drives together?

Inexpensive multibay enclosures all use multiplexers to save cost. You have to step up to a professional grade enclosure with a SAS expander to get what you want. It's also not recommended to run data pools off USB.

 

[Samuel Tai]

Depending on how many PCI-E slots you have on your motherboard, you may be able to take advantage of something like this:

Amazon.com

You'd be able to use 4x of your 5x SSDs on one adapter, and TrueNAS would see all 4x drives. If you have another slot free, you can get a 2nd adapter to host the 5th drive.

 

[KurtM]

Depending on how many PCI-E slots you have on your motherboard, you may be able to take advantage of something like this:

Amazon.com

You'd be able to use 4x of your 5x SSDs on one adapter, and TrueNAS would see all 4x drives. If you have another slot free, you can get a 2nd adapter to host the 5th drive.

I have a Beelink miniPC, so no internal anything. This is for a small staff, with mostly file storage. USB 3.0 is 5GB, so why is it a bad idea for something small?

 

[danb35]

I have a Beelink miniPC, so no internal anything.

This is not suitable hardware for TrueNAS. At all. We have a few threads with hardware recommendations; I'd suggest you read and follow them if you want a stable NAS that will safely store your data.

USB 3.0 is 5GB, so why is it a bad idea for something small?

The issue isn't throughput (though it's 5 gigabits/sec, not gigabytes); it's stability (or lack thereof) of the interface.

 

[Samuel Tai]

it's stability (or lack thereof) of the interface.

USB isn't designed for continuous use. Trying to run it as a storage interface at high bit rates with continuous usage will end up overheating either the controller chipset or the root bridge, at which point, your storage will disconnect.