HarryStottle
Dabbler
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2023
- Messages
- 20
Another newbie.
Bought a cheap HP Proliant DL360p Gen8 with a couple of 1.8Tb drives I've configured as RAID 1.
My preference was to install Novell onto it but I had accepted that was infeasible because HP no longer supports Novell and I'd spent a couple of years trying to find the relevant drivers for a Proliant without success. (I support a number of ageing Novell servers all of whom need upgraded hardware)
But I was determined to avoid Windows Server at all costs (even though it's for a bunch of Windoze workstations to connect to as a file server) so I thought I'd give Linux a try, even though I'm a newbie on that as well. I managed to get the basic stuff installed, with a GUI to make life easier, but the peripheral setup of Shares, protocols, groups, users and getting Samba configured to allow windows connections has proved far too much of a hassle and one of the guys on Experts Exchange suggested, that given that I only needed a basic file server, I might try TrueNAS. So here I am. Just as much a TrueNAS newbie as with Linux but, I'm assured, this should be a lot easier.
In reading about TrueNAS, I came across refs to installing to and booting from an SSD and using the RAID purely for the file storage. Looked like a good idea, and I have a number of spare SSDs available, so I installed an SSD into the Server, created a bootable installation USB stick (using Rufus) and proceeded to install TrueNAS.
It gave me the choice of installing to the RAID (DA0) 1.6Tb or the SSD (DA2) 256Mb. I chose the SSD, entered username and password.
It warned me that the installation would wipe the drive and that I wouldn't be able to share any data on the system drive. That was exactly what I wanted so to consented to that and let it proceed.
It failed with the message
gmirror: [looked like the display cut off the first letter or 2] No Such Device: swap
dd: /dev/da2: Read-only file system
The TrueNAS installation on DA2 has failed, Press Enter to Continue...
My first guess was that the SSD I'd selected still had the Windows 10 OS that had been on it before I reclaimed it from the defunct PC. So I removed the drive, put it in a caddy attached to one of my workstations, removed existing partitions and reformatted the drive.
No change.
2nd guess, it didn't like formatted drives. Cleared it again, left it unformatted.
No change.
3rd guess. bad SSD.
Selected another 256, repeated all the steps above. Got the same results
4th guess. another bad SSD? unlikely but I unwrapped a brand new 500Mb SSD and tried that.
This time got a new clue. It still reported DA2 as 256 Mb, so perhaps it just isn't reading the disk correctly, or perhaps, if you intend to boot from an SSD in a Proliant with 6 drive bays, it has to be in a specific bay and mine wasn't.
And I had another thought about the last line of the failure message. There was, of course no such folder on the SSD, but the RAID drive DID still contain my final attempt at the Linux system and perhaps that /Dev folder was the one TrueNAS needed to overwrite and couldn't.
So I wiped the existing Array and set it up as a fresh naked RAID (still RAID 1).
Still no change.
Last desperate attempt, forget the SSD, I'll install it on the RAID and sacrifice a bit of storage space
But when I chose that, I got exactly the same warning as when I chose the SSD. i.e. it would wipe everything (fine) and I wouldn't be able to share data on it (definitely NOT fine!)
That's me out of ideas.
Suggestions?
Bought a cheap HP Proliant DL360p Gen8 with a couple of 1.8Tb drives I've configured as RAID 1.
My preference was to install Novell onto it but I had accepted that was infeasible because HP no longer supports Novell and I'd spent a couple of years trying to find the relevant drivers for a Proliant without success. (I support a number of ageing Novell servers all of whom need upgraded hardware)
But I was determined to avoid Windows Server at all costs (even though it's for a bunch of Windoze workstations to connect to as a file server) so I thought I'd give Linux a try, even though I'm a newbie on that as well. I managed to get the basic stuff installed, with a GUI to make life easier, but the peripheral setup of Shares, protocols, groups, users and getting Samba configured to allow windows connections has proved far too much of a hassle and one of the guys on Experts Exchange suggested, that given that I only needed a basic file server, I might try TrueNAS. So here I am. Just as much a TrueNAS newbie as with Linux but, I'm assured, this should be a lot easier.
In reading about TrueNAS, I came across refs to installing to and booting from an SSD and using the RAID purely for the file storage. Looked like a good idea, and I have a number of spare SSDs available, so I installed an SSD into the Server, created a bootable installation USB stick (using Rufus) and proceeded to install TrueNAS.
It gave me the choice of installing to the RAID (DA0) 1.6Tb or the SSD (DA2) 256Mb. I chose the SSD, entered username and password.
It warned me that the installation would wipe the drive and that I wouldn't be able to share any data on the system drive. That was exactly what I wanted so to consented to that and let it proceed.
It failed with the message
gmirror: [looked like the display cut off the first letter or 2] No Such Device: swap
dd: /dev/da2: Read-only file system
The TrueNAS installation on DA2 has failed, Press Enter to Continue...
My first guess was that the SSD I'd selected still had the Windows 10 OS that had been on it before I reclaimed it from the defunct PC. So I removed the drive, put it in a caddy attached to one of my workstations, removed existing partitions and reformatted the drive.
No change.
2nd guess, it didn't like formatted drives. Cleared it again, left it unformatted.
No change.
3rd guess. bad SSD.
Selected another 256, repeated all the steps above. Got the same results
4th guess. another bad SSD? unlikely but I unwrapped a brand new 500Mb SSD and tried that.
This time got a new clue. It still reported DA2 as 256 Mb, so perhaps it just isn't reading the disk correctly, or perhaps, if you intend to boot from an SSD in a Proliant with 6 drive bays, it has to be in a specific bay and mine wasn't.
And I had another thought about the last line of the failure message. There was, of course no such folder on the SSD, but the RAID drive DID still contain my final attempt at the Linux system and perhaps that /Dev folder was the one TrueNAS needed to overwrite and couldn't.
So I wiped the existing Array and set it up as a fresh naked RAID (still RAID 1).
Still no change.
Last desperate attempt, forget the SSD, I'll install it on the RAID and sacrifice a bit of storage space
But when I chose that, I got exactly the same warning as when I chose the SSD. i.e. it would wipe everything (fine) and I wouldn't be able to share data on it (definitely NOT fine!)
That's me out of ideas.
Suggestions?