Problem formatting disks and creating a volume

[Burlumpu Bumpu]

Dear community

I am a new user of FreeNas with little linux experience. I've bought a Dell R510 with a lots of ECC memory, 12 physical cores and a PERC H200, which I (as far as I can tell) successfully crossflashed to it mode.

FreeNas 11.5 runs on a USB-Stick.

Recently I bought 9 used 4TB Seagate SAS HDDs (ST4000NM0043), which are self encrypting drives. Block size seems to be correct (512). They show up in the "disk" section, however I can't wipe them (invalid argument or operation permitted) in order to build a volume.

I've tried everything I could find including gpart destroy, dd (which didn't work without sysctl), cleaned all the partitions using diskpart clean (not clean all) with the help of an installation media of Windows Server 2016. I even quick erased all the disks using DBAN. Also I get a lot of SCSI-errors in dmesg (error 22, unretryable error) for all the SAS-disks. The SSD, that I attached to the former DVD-drive, works just fine.

Any ideas on what to do now?

Regards

Alex

 

[kdragon75]

FreeNas 11.5 runs on a USB-Stick.

11.1-U5
Also I just searched google for SCSI Error 22 and found:
https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-scsi/2017-January/007243.html
This may have some information to get you started.

 

[Burlumpu Bumpu]

Thanks! I started this process yesterday but had to abort it.. Is there a way to start sg_format all the disks at the same time? (I have eight of them :) )

EDIT: I'll just open multiple putty sessions and start the process for all 8 drives. I hope this is allowed..

 

[kdragon75]

Thanks! I started this process yesterday but had to abort it.. Is there a way to start sg_format all the disks at the same time? (I have eight of them :) )

EDIT: I'll just open multiple putty sessions and start the process for all 8 drives. I hope this is allowed..

If the session dies the process will die too. You can start the command with nohup or even use screen . nohup is easy but you cant "reconnect" to the process in some cases. You just have to wait it out.

 

[Burlumpu Bumpu]

If the session dies the process will die too. You can start the command with nohup or even use screen . nohup is easy but you can't "reconnect" to the process in some cases. You just have to wait it out.

I started all the formatting using nohup before the command. I hope this works :) I'd be really happy..

 

[Burlumpu Bumpu]

IT WORKED :) Pool is created.. Thanks a lot!

 

[Burlumpu Bumpu]

Sooo.. I destroyed the pool, something went wrong while renaming it. After fiddling with wipe, sysctl and dd (no success), I sg_format ted all the disks. Again. And now, I can not create a pool ("can not GPT format daX operation not permitted") The SCSI-Errors are gone, though :) Can you help me to diagnose the problem?

 

[kdragon75]

Have you rebooted?

 

[Burlumpu Bumpu]

Have you rebooted?

yes, after formatting before I tried to create the new pool..

 

[kdragon75]

How did you try to rename the pool?

 

[Burlumpu Bumpu]

How did you try to rename the pool?

I followed those instructions..: http://www.dflc.ch/freenas-renaming-zfs-pool/

# zpool export volume_name
# zpool import volume_name new_volume_name

Then I tried to detach the volume, which failed. After that, everything went south..

 

[kdragon75]

What does gpart show /dev/daX output?

 

[Burlumpu Bumpu]

What does gpart show /dev/daX output?

Code:

# gpart show
=>		40  7814037088  da1  GPT  (3.6T)
		  40		  88	   - free -  (44K)
		 128	 4194304	1  freebsd-swap  (2.0G)
	 4194432  7809842696	   - free -  (3.6T)

=>		40  7814037088  da2  GPT  (3.6T)
		  40		  88	   - free -  (44K)
		 128	 4194304	1  freebsd-swap  (2.0G)
	 4194432  7809842696	   - free -  (3.6T)

=>	  40  30218768  da8  GPT  (14G)
		40	532480	1  efi  (260M)
	532520  29686280	2  freebsd-zfs  (14G)
  30218800		 8	   - free -  (4.0K)

I did try to delete all partitions, the da1p2 and da2p2 were deletable, not so the first partitions (gpart delete -i 1 da1 => device busy)

 

[kdragon75]

sounds like the pool is imported. Check zpool list and then zpool export any pools you find (other than boot) Also use code tags when posting command output please. It makes it easier to read as it preserves formatting.

 

[Burlumpu Bumpu]

Code:

root@freenas:~ # zpool list
NAME		   SIZE  ALLOC   FREE  EXPANDSZ   FRAG	CAP  DEDUP  HEALTH  ALTROOT
ZFS2			  -	  -	  -		 -	  -	  -	  -  UNAVAIL  -
freenas-boot  14.1G   849M  13.3G		 -	  -	 5%  1.00x  ONLINE  -
root@freenas:~ # zpool export ZFS2

Can the former pool still exist after sg_format?

 

[kdragon75]

Nope but I do see ZFS2 listed as a pool... Export that sucker! on another thought cat you use the wipe disk button in the UI? Im getting slow. Im tired and its been a long day

 

[Burlumpu Bumpu]

Nope but I do see ZFS2 listed as a pool... Export that sucker! on another thought cat you use the wipe disk button in the UI? Im getting slow. Im tired and its been a long day

I did :) What now? Wiping da1 and da2 is not permitted. Should I sg_format again? I fear the stress for the HDDs..

No problem, thanks for your help today! It's past midnight anyways in Switzerland..

 

[kdragon75]

I fear the stress for the HDDs..

Don't. Spinning rust can handel dozens of wipes per day for years. Brain is too tired to think. Someone else step in.

 

[Burlumpu Bumpu]

Don't. Spinning rust can handel dozens of wipes per day for years. Brain is too tired to think. Someone else step in.

Alright, I'll sg_format again tomorrow morning. No hurry, I need to sleep anyways (getting up in 5h...) Thanks again and have a relaxing evening!

 

[Burlumpu Bumpu]

Code:

root@freenas:~ # zpool list
NAME		   SIZE  ALLOC   FREE  EXPANDSZ   FRAG	CAP  DEDUP  HEALTH  ALTROOT
RAIDZ2		  29T  3.71M  29.0T		 -	 0%	 0%  1.00x  ONLINE  /mnt
freenas-boot  14.1G   850M  13.3G		 -	  -	 5%  1.00x  ONLINE  -

Don't ask me how or why it worked this time. I don't get it. Seriousely don't :) Tomorrow night more experimenting with FreeNas. Thanks to everyone!