Installation of FreeNAS 9.3 onto Intel NVMe SSD

[bra1n]

Greetings,

I just put together a server with the intention of using an Intel series 750 NVMe SSD as the boot disk. The installation seemed to be proceeding smoothly through the point where I selected the SSD as the target disk for the OS and set my root password. Immediately after that however the installation hung showing:

gpart: arg0 'nvd0': Invalid argument
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
1048576 bytes transferred in 0.003742 secs (200219593 bytes/sec)
nvd0 created
nvd0p1 added
nvd0p2 added
active set on nvd0

I assume gpart didn't handle the NVMe drive smoothly. The installer at least recognized the disk and my BIOS supports these drives.

Any insight would be helpful before I open a bug on this issue.

Thanks in advance!

 

[zambanini]

why do you want to waste the nvme ssd as a boot disk? use it as a zil/slog, if your usecase allows it.

 

[bra1n]

I had considered something like that. Is it considered OK to run the OS off of a USB thumb drive?

 

[zambanini]

sure. you can also mirror two usb sticks. it is all in the manual

 

[BigDave]

Is it considered OK to run the OS off of a USB thumb drive?

A USB thumb/flash drive is a popular and one of the preferred methods, yes.

edit: spelling

 

[Ericloewe]

If USB is a bit too unreliable for you, use cheap SSDs for the OS. Anything NVMe is way overkill for the OS.