ZFS Storage

[Guy Buckingham]

I am trying to create a cluster within VMware Worstation 11. I am trying to create a iSCSI target with FreeNAS. To create the ZFS storage volume I have been using storage manager. When I click on "Add Volume" after giving it a volume name, the available disks I want to use and the volume layout, the disks do not appear in a volume. It is as if I have done nothing. Any ideas, or is it basically, useless to try? I have read the directions within the manual, and directions from a previous version of FreeNAS, it appears it can work, but....

 

[cyberjock]

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/forum-rules.22553/#post-134570/

 

[Guy Buckingham]

I did read the rules of the forum and, yes, I can use Workstation. I have years of experience with it. I can get FreeNAS to run on a standalone server. I wanted to do the above for a thesis. I wanted to know if there was a known flaw between them, the current version of both.

 

[mjws00]

Haven't seen any talk on workstation 11. Works fine on 8,9,10. I don't have 11 so can't vouch. But generally vmware is additive on features not subtractive. Maybe something is broken, but I doubt it. Try thick provisioning your disks and see if it makes a difference. I've seen a glitch or two on thin provisioned disks. Lazy zero seems ok. Might want to try building the pool from the cli to see if you throw an error.

In general you won't get many hits on a virtualized set up as it is a nice way to lose data, and there are too many variables for us to troubleshoot easily. For oddball test scenario's you can only hope you catch someone's eye. Plus you're on bleeding edge workstation, where most virtualization guys here run esxi.

Two bits, there are a number that use workstation for testing. We've all built pools.

 

[cyberjock]

I was referring to these lines in the forum rules...

• Error Information: Include as much error code information as possible. When pasting directly into the message, everything in the paste MUST be included in code brackets in order to maintain the format of the message and make it easier to read. At the beginning of the error message, insert the word CODE inside of a [ and a ] bracket, paste the error message, and then insert the word /CODE inside of a [ and a ] bracket. Alternatively, paste the message into an online pasting service such as pastebin.com, set the link to not expire, and include the URL to the pasted message. In addition to error messages, pasting the output from these commands may be useful for troubleshooting purposes:

1. dmesg
   
2. ifconfig (if you are asking about a NIC or networking problem)
   
3. pciconf -lv (if you are asking about motherBoard or PCI card problems)
   
4. smartctl –a /dev/drive (where ‘drive’ is the drive letter, typically ada0, or da0, when discussing hard drive failures)
   
5. If you aren't sure what to provide, paste the Debug information. This can be generated in the WebGUI under Settings → Advanced → Save Debug

• System Configuration Information: Items marked with an asterisk “*” are required for a failure postings. However, all items are recommended and could simply be part of your tag-line.

* FreeNAS version (ex. “FreeNAS 9.2.1.6-Release 64-bit”)

* Hardware:

1. * Motherboard (Model)
   
2. * CPU (Model)
   
3. * RAM Size (in GB and model)
   
4. Hard Drives (Model), Quantity, and RAIDZ configuration
   
5. Add-On cards
   
6. For network connectivity, include details on your network hardware/configuration.

You've got the standard "my car won't start" analogy here. I can't help when the complaint is a generic "I have a problem" and there's nothing to go on.

 

[gpsguy]

Although you've told us what hypervisor you're using, you haven't told us anything about the settings you've chosen in Workstation. Which hard disk controller are you using and how much RAM have you allocated to FreeNAS? Did you select FreeBSD as the OS? Which version of FreeNAS are you using?

ZFS on FreeNAS needs a minimum of 8Gb of RAM. Whenever I do testing on my ESXi box, I still allocate 8Gb, even if I'm only using a couple of 20Gb virtual disks.