How to prepare a flash drive for installation? (not installer media, the actual destination)

[TackleMcClean]

This is when I try to run the installer. Over IPMI, on a Supermicro X11SSM-F motherboard. (specs in sig)

Waiting long enough, it pops up "random: unblocking device".

I have a OCZ 4gb USB drive I'm installing from, to a 16gb mushkin USB drive.
I have another 16gb mushkin that I tried installing from FIRST, but ran into weird similar problems (it always hangs on this screen with various messages). So to make things simpler I moved to install from the OCZ.
My end goal is to have the installation mirrored on the two mushkin drives. But that's a future challenge.

Now, I reckon there's something wrong with the 16gb flash drive. GPT table is corrupt?
Problem is, I don't know how to prepare a USB drive for being totally clean and ready to install onto. I'm guessing that's the issue at least.

I've done the following at least, in Windows.

diskpart
select disk=(the disk id)
clean
convert mbr
create partition primary

And from what I can tell in Windows drive manager it turns into a pretty raw unallocated partition. I've also tried skipping the partition part.

Any idea?
I bought the exact memory after recommendation for FreeNAS on the storage reddit.

 

[Chris Moore]

I have a OCZ 4gb USB drive I'm installing from, to a 16gb mushkin USB drive.

There is no preparation to do, but there are some drive that don't work well. The best option is to use a SATA drive for the boot media.

 

[Chris Moore]

reddit.

They don't know.
Hardware Requirements
http://www.freenas.org/hardware-requirements/

special emphasis:

 

[TackleMcClean]

The redditors have foiled my plan. Curses.

Would a single SSD be better than 2 mirrored (for redundancy) USB drives? I have no idea what actually goes on the installed disks other than FreeNAS software, and I assume... settings? But these should be possible to backup?
Basically, how useful is mirroring the installed disk?

 

[Chris Moore]

Would a single SSD be better than 2 mirrored (for redundancy) USB drives?

There are some options in that regard. Once upon a time, USB memory sticks were perfectly good for boot media because the boot media was not used very much. Now days, the boot media gets a lot more action. Here is the utilization chart for my mirrored set:

They are constantly getting action, even when the NAS is largely idle:

Well, we were watching a movie. Still, the boot pool is almost always about that active.

The thing I use for my mirror set of boot drives is kind of like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-2-F...6-001-SATA-2-5-Laptop-Hard-Drive/163486950206

The difference is, mine are 40GB, but I have been using them for almost three years and it is hard to find them that small any more. Even though they are used constantly, it isn't much work for a good quality hard drive but it is way more than the USB sticks are made for and they tend to fail fairly quickly. There are also some compatibility issues with USB memory modules.
At work, I have several servers that use mirrored SSD boot drives like these:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-320-...-Hard-Drive-SSDSA2CT040G3-TESTED/292919340779

Boot drives don't need to be large and they don't need to be fast, but it sure makes life easier if they are super reliable. That is the reason for SSD boot drives, not the speed, the reliability.

I have no idea what actually goes on the installed disks other than FreeNAS software, and I assume... settings?

The OS install and the configuration database go there by default.

You can also move the system dataset, the syslog and the reporting database to the boot pool, which is what I do.

But these should be possible to backup?

It is easy to backup the configuration database:
https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11/system.html#general
In the old user interface, on the "General" tab, there is a button marked "Save Config". Simple.