Newbie Zpool create question with eSATA 3TB disks

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Newbie Zpool create question with eSATA 3TB disks

Post by tewarfel » Wed Dec 12, 2012 1:36 am

I'm having difficulty creating a mirrored zpool on two 3TB Hitachi drives (Hitachi HDS723030ALA640-MK0311YHG)

Code: Select all
bash-3.2# zpool create -f  -o ashift=12 -O casesensitivity=insensitive -O normalization=formD ZFSdata mirror /dev/disk10 /dev/disk11
diskutil eraseDisk failed, exit status 1


However, if I use the partitions rather than the full disks themselves, it works.

Code: Select all
bash-3.2# zpool create -f  -o ashift=12 -O casesensitivity=insensitive -O normalization=formD ZFSdata mirror /dev/disk10s2 /dev/disk11s2
bash-3.2#


Each 3TB drive has its own power supply and its own eSATA connection to a NewerTech external SAS controller running current drivers from the NewerTech web site (newer than the OWC web site). I have a Mac Pro 5,1 with 32GB RAM running the latest iteration of Mountain Lion.

They work fine using Disk Utility to create an HFS software RAID, or as individual HFS-formatted disks.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong and what I'd need to do to be able to use the whole disk rather than just a partition?

Thanks,
-Tom
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troubleshooting, with answers from dbrady

Post by grahamperrin » Thu Dec 13, 2012 1:20 am

diskutil eraseVolume failed, exit status 1

– appears in the opening post of:


I have asked for both topics to be moved, from general discussion to troubleshooting.
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Re: Newbie Zpool create question with eSATA 3TB disks

Post by tewarfel » Thu Dec 13, 2012 3:37 pm

I apologize if I'm misunderstanding the protocol here. I wasn't sure if I needed to wait until this was moved, or keep answering in this thread until it is moved. Corrective instructions in appropriate board etiquette appreciated.

I tried the
Code: Select all
sudo diskutil eraseVolume "ZFS Pool" ZFS rdisk5s7

game, using /dev/disk10s2 and /dev/disk10s1, instead of "rdisk5s7" but even that was just working with partitions.
I can erase / format partitions, but giving ZFS the whole disk returns an error message.

Code: Select all
#diskutil eraseVolume "ZFS Pool" ZFS /dev/disk9s2
Started erase on disk9s2 Untitled
Unmounting disk
Erasing
Mounting disk
Could not mount disk9s2 with name (null) after erase
Finished erase on disk9s2
#


but trying
Code: Select all
bash-3.2# diskutil eraseVolume "ZFS Pool" ZFS /dev/disk9
Started erase on disk9
Unmounting disk
Error: -69888: Couldn't unmount disk
bash-3.2#


I can't erase a whole disk.

Has anyone successfully used straight eSATA 3TB drives successfully with ZFS using the whole drive rather than just a partition, and if so, what is the series of magic incantations to build a 2-drive mirror using them?

Thanks,
-Tom
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Re: Newbie Zpool create question with eSATA 3TB disks

Post by grahamperrin » Thu Dec 13, 2012 10:42 pm

… I wasn't sure if I needed to wait until this was moved, or keep answering in this thread until it is moved. …


No need to apologise :-)

If done, the move (by a moderator) should preserve all content. Any questions about etiquette can go to Meta (About this forum)

Please carry on …
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Re: Newbie Zpool create question with eSATA 3TB disks

Post by tewarfel » Mon Dec 17, 2012 12:06 am

I guess I'll try rephrasing the question in the new location:

Has anyone successfully created a ZFS pool using 3TB SATA drives using the whole drive device (e.g. /dev/disk11, not just a large partition like /dev/disk11s2 so that ZFS is able to make effective use of the drive's write-cache, or is this not supported / not appropriate?

If successful, what was the series of commands used to be able to get to something like:
Code: Select all
 zpool create -f  -o ashift=12 -O casesensitivity=insensitive -O normalization=formD ZFSdata mirror /dev/disk10 /dev/disk11


and to have it complete successfully?

Thanks,
-Tom
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Re: Newbie Zpool create question with eSATA 3TB disks

Post by tewarfel » Mon Dec 17, 2012 12:19 am

A bit more information...

For ZFS under Solaris, and FreeBSD implementations, the general rule I've seen posted is
ZFS typically works best when it owns the entire disk.


However, for the (separate) MacZFS project, the rule was
Whereas for other platforms, the comment that "ZFS typically works best when it owns the entire disk" should be taken literally. on MacOS this has to be interpreted as "ZFS works best when given a partition which is the whole disk less the GUID partition". On MacOS giving ZFS the whole disk will not work. Follow the exanple and not the header.
- from "a...@designlifecycle.com" near the bottom of the page at
http://code.google.com/p/maczfs/wiki/GettingStarted

Further down, someone else says
To respond to the above comment, giving ZFS the whole drive will work as long as you manually handle startup and shutdown as is detailed in the FAQ.
However, I've perused the FAQ at http://code.google.com/p/maczfs/wiki/FAQ and still don't have an answer.

Other suggestions / pointers are welcomed and appreciated.

-Tom
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whole drive device instead of a slice

Post by grahamperrin » Mon Dec 17, 2012 4:06 am

tearful wrote:… using the whole drive device (e.g. /dev/disk11, not just a large partition like /dev/disk11s2  …


It depends what you mean by using the whole drive device. Consider: disks without a GUID Partition Table (GPT)
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Re: Newbie Zpool create question with eSATA 3TB disks

Post by Hardcorefs » Mon Dec 17, 2012 7:46 pm

Yep... I have successfully done this using these drives... BUT I have the issue of the ZFS crashing on 10.6.8 ,so until that is fixed I cannot say if it is 100% stable
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Re: Newbie Zpool create question with eSATA 3TB disks

Post by tewarfel » Wed Dec 19, 2012 12:51 am

Thank you! The link to the disks without a GUID Partition Table (GPT) section answered my question. Bottom line is that I shouldn't try to do it without some other really compelling reason in a Mac OSX environment because it breaks the way Mac OSX knows a drive. Problem resolved.
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