Yes I did flash the raid controller. Truenas wants it flashed to IT mode. My hope was to use one of the internal motherboard sata connectors for the boot drive on the machine. This has since failed as an option. What Im having to do is boot via the internal USB ona NVMe memory mounted to a NVMe to usb adaptor. Not my first choice but its working.
I understand that you flashed the controller. My question was: did you flash a boot image to the controller AFTER you flashed the controller to IT mode. This is an important step if you want to boot from a drive attached to the controller. Possibly even the SATA ports. That's the part I'm not certain of.
No I did not flash a boot image to the controller. I did not know you could do that. Are these boot images compatible with running the truenas/freenas operating systems for the zfs that they use for the raid operations?
If yes, how and where do I get the boot image? That would be great if I could use one of the rear facing bays for a boot drive and get rid of the usb path.
Sorry for the delay, I forgot to check for your response. The boot image is compatible with any OS. There are two to choose from and you can load both. The images are for BIOS boot and UEFI boot.
Please see this link for details. I'm not sure what guide you used to flash your controller so you may want to start from scratch or possibly contact the author of this guide to ensure you don't brick your controller. The boot image section will likely be dependent on the revision of your controller.
No worries on the delay, thank you for getting back to me.
Yes I did go back and use those installations instructions and added the bios boot loader. Its possible I made a mistake in how I did it, but with a drive installed on the back plane I was not able to boot from it still. I did see one of the drives from my array as a boot option, but was not able to change it to any of the other drives installed. Now I guess is maybe pulling from the first drive? I have 8 hgst 4tb drives and 1 120gb ssd which is where I wanted to boot from. The boot options did not allow me to see that ssd when installed onto the back plane with the bios boot loader installed. What could be causing the boot loader to not let me see one of the other drives? When I run the Truenas installer it can see all of the drives on the back plane without issue.
Yes I did try the UEFI boot loader and had the same result not being able to see the rear bay ssd. Maybe I should go though and try it again. I would really love to get these machines I have booting from the backplane over the internal usb.
I assume you have gone into the BIOS settings and tried to make the SSD in the rear backplane the first boot device? If so and it didn't work, did you also try accessing the boot order menu (F11)? If you've done all these things, it would seem that there's an issue with your install. I've had this happen when I didn't use the "correct" method for creating the ISO on USB. I can only assume that you followed the install instructions from TrueNAS docs?
Did you ever come up with a better solution? I was in the same boat, no issue with r720 with the 16 bay 2.5" backplane. Swapped to 720xd with 12 bay 3.5" backplane and 2.5 " rear plane, no more sata booting. I tried removing the 2.5 rear backplane, the flash slot, still no sata.
The only solution I was able to get to work was to buy a usb to nvme converter and use that as the boot drive running off the internal usb. Its not the ideal solution but its working. When ever I build the next truenas server Ill need to do a better job selecting hardware. Unfortunately there is not a lot of info out there. Its unfortunate too, cause I really like the dell hardware. These old dell servers are still great machines. Next time around I think Ill go to the r730s which I think have better support for the Truenas folks.
Now there was some talk here on this thread about installing the boot loader into the raid card and running uefi mode. I tried several time and was unsuccessful. I finally ran out of time and the project needed to move forward and get off my desk. If you do try this please repost and let me know if you have any success doing it. The uefi and bios bootloaders are a follow on when flashing the raid card into it mode. There is an option at the end of the process.
rupertm1e6
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February 22nd, 2021 11:00
Hello Cfdit,
Yes I did flash the raid controller. Truenas wants it flashed to IT mode. My hope was to use one of the internal motherboard sata connectors for the boot drive on the machine. This has since failed as an option. What Im having to do is boot via the internal USB ona NVMe memory mounted to a NVMe to usb adaptor. Not my first choice but its working.
Thanks for the response Cfdit
Matt
cfdit
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February 23rd, 2021 13:00
I understand that you flashed the controller. My question was: did you flash a boot image to the controller AFTER you flashed the controller to IT mode. This is an important step if you want to boot from a drive attached to the controller. Possibly even the SATA ports. That's the part I'm not certain of.
rupertm1e6
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February 23rd, 2021 19:00
Hello Cfdit,
No I did not flash a boot image to the controller. I did not know you could do that. Are these boot images compatible with running the truenas/freenas operating systems for the zfs that they use for the raid operations?
If yes, how and where do I get the boot image? That would be great if I could use one of the rear facing bays for a boot drive and get rid of the usb path.
Thank you for the information and response!!
Matt
cfdit
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March 11th, 2021 06:00
Sorry for the delay, I forgot to check for your response. The boot image is compatible with any OS. There are two to choose from and you can load both. The images are for BIOS boot and UEFI boot.
Please see this link for details. I'm not sure what guide you used to flash your controller so you may want to start from scratch or possibly contact the author of this guide to ensure you don't brick your controller. The boot image section will likely be dependent on the revision of your controller.
rupertm1e6
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March 11th, 2021 08:00
Good Morning Cfdit,
No worries on the delay, thank you for getting back to me.
Yes I did go back and use those installations instructions and added the bios boot loader. Its possible I made a mistake in how I did it, but with a drive installed on the back plane I was not able to boot from it still. I did see one of the drives from my array as a boot option, but was not able to change it to any of the other drives installed. Now I guess is maybe pulling from the first drive? I have 8 hgst 4tb drives and 1 120gb ssd which is where I wanted to boot from. The boot options did not allow me to see that ssd when installed onto the back plane with the bios boot loader installed. What could be causing the boot loader to not let me see one of the other drives? When I run the Truenas installer it can see all of the drives on the back plane without issue.
Matt
cfdit
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March 16th, 2021 18:00
Did you also try using the UEFI bootloader?
rupertm1e6
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March 19th, 2021 10:00
Hello Cfdit,
Yes I did try the UEFI boot loader and had the same result not being able to see the rear bay ssd. Maybe I should go though and try it again. I would really love to get these machines I have booting from the backplane over the internal usb.
Thank you
Matt
cfdit
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March 20th, 2021 12:00
I assume you have gone into the BIOS settings and tried to make the SSD in the rear backplane the first boot device? If so and it didn't work, did you also try accessing the boot order menu (F11)? If you've done all these things, it would seem that there's an issue with your install. I've had this happen when I didn't use the "correct" method for creating the ISO on USB. I can only assume that you followed the install instructions from TrueNAS docs?
ejkeebler
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April 26th, 2021 16:00
Did you ever come up with a better solution? I was in the same boat, no issue with r720 with the 16 bay 2.5" backplane. Swapped to 720xd with 12 bay 3.5" backplane and 2.5 " rear plane, no more sata booting. I tried removing the 2.5 rear backplane, the flash slot, still no sata.
DELL-Young E
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April 26th, 2021 20:00
Hi, however the result came out, please know this isn’t supported by Dell. R720 isn't exactly the same looking as R720XD. Wish you a great day.
rupertm1e6
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April 26th, 2021 20:00
Hello Ejkeebler,
The only solution I was able to get to work was to buy a usb to nvme converter and use that as the boot drive running off the internal usb. Its not the ideal solution but its working. When ever I build the next truenas server Ill need to do a better job selecting hardware. Unfortunately there is not a lot of info out there. Its unfortunate too, cause I really like the dell hardware. These old dell servers are still great machines. Next time around I think Ill go to the r730s which I think have better support for the Truenas folks.
Now there was some talk here on this thread about installing the boot loader into the raid card and running uefi mode. I tried several time and was unsuccessful. I finally ran out of time and the project needed to move forward and get off my desk. If you do try this please repost and let me know if you have any success doing it. The uefi and bios bootloaders are a follow on when flashing the raid card into it mode. There is an option at the end of the process.
Good luck!!!
Matt