Hi Till, Many thanks for the detailed response.
My target is an enterprise Sandisk SSD on the end of a Sata/USB controller. I think I can get it in the case. I've tried a few combinations and have one that boots, so I'm fairly confident that this is now down to tweeking; but I might have reached the end of the road with the USB approach because, as you say, they are a bit exotic. I do have a couple of HP N54L microservers in service for about five years, with the custom BIOS flash so I have hot plug/play. The newer microservers still run to a grand with a decent spec, which is a bit rich for me at the moment; I need to save. This is now just a case of not letting the QNAP go to landfill. You're correct... my model is a half gig flash memory module on a USB header and it unpacks itself into memory. With that gone, I'm at the 2015 American Megatrends BIOS controlling the boot, but I haven't found an update that I trust for that motherboard yet. Thanks for the tip on SmartOS - I'll look it up. Michelle. On Fri, 2021-04-30 at 19:21 -0300, Till Wegmueller wrote: > Hi Michelle > > I don't know how happy you are going to get with a QNAP Hardware as > base > for OI. QNAP is very exotic Hardware. It may be USB what they are > using > in princiapl, but unless you are sure the Controllers are actually > the > Controllers they are saying they are and the Storage is not a SD card > in > Hiding, you are going to have a bad time. ZFS does not assume the > Storage to be uncorruptable, and thus far every SD-Card I found was > so > terrible, that one meeting with ZFS showed just how much dataloss > these > cards have. > > QNAP and Synology usually use RAMDISK based approaches which run > fully > in RAM and only use the Storage to boot. > > SmartOS does the same, so this could work. > > In my career and with friends I have seen many OS installation to > USB > drives and SD-cards go horribly wrong. Those storage Options usually > don't survive for long and then the whole OS is gone. I've seen it > with > FreeNAS(FreeBSD), Linux and illumos based Oses. I use Disks or SSD's > as > Storage for the Pools. The Cable can be USB. But it needs to be a > Disk > and not a flashdrive to at least Guarantee some use. > > My Hardware recommendations for Cheap Home Servers for NAS on a > budget > include HP Microservers Gen8 (Gen10 works too, but they spew warnings > on > boot) SuperMicro Mini-ITX Boards. HP Workstations, or Workstations > and > Gaming and Office Rigs in general and of course Dan McDonalds HDC3.0 > [0] > > -Till > > [0] https://kebe.com/blog/?tag=HDC > > On 30.04.21 17:19, Michelle wrote: > > Good suggestions, but sadly didn't work. > > > > Using option 2 single user also fails with the same errors. > > > > I've also tried the USB interface in various booting modes, > > unfortunately none of which work. > > > > I took a look at the variables in the boot options, just for the > > sake > > of it, and couldn't find anything obvious that would help > > > > Michelle. > > > > On Fri, 2021-04-30 at 20:00 +0000, Reginald Beardsley via > > openindiana- > > discuss wrote: > > > Try selecting the "reconfigure" option when you first boot the > > > installed image. > > > > > > It is *supposed* to reconfigure, but I spent 50 hrs before I > > > found > > > out how to get 2021.04.05 to boot after the install. I thought > > > the > > > issue was the particular nVIDIA driver, but that was not the > > > case. > > > > > > I also got a fresh install of 2021.04.05 to boot properly by > > > coming > > > up single user, "touch /reconfigure; init 6". > > > > > > Good luck, > > > Reg > > > > > > > > > On Friday, April 30, 2021, 02:50:50 PM CDT, Michelle < > > > miche...@msknight.com> wrote: > > > > > > OK, this is where things are going to get a bit awkward. > > > > > > Scenario – QNAP NAS TS-251 decided to install their own Malware > > > Remover > > > which tells me it’s removed files, but doesn’t tell me which ones > > > it’s > > > removed, and I can’t kill the remover itself. If I Ssh in and > > > remove > > > it, it simply re-installs itself. I'm not a fan of malware > > > removers > > > that don't tell you what files they've removed. > > > > > > So… the decision to rip it apart and install my own operating > > > system. > > > After all, it’s on an American Megatrends bios. > > > > > > The 2gig of RAM was replaced with 8, and the storage is a half > > > gig > > > USB > > > flash module. So the flash module has to be replaced also. > > > > > > I thus have a USB header unit and I’ve also tried to install > > > Hipster > > > to > > > a flash drive connected via a USB harness, and also to a USB key > > > directly. > > > > > > On install, I get an error… > > > > > > openindiana drm: WARNING: [drm:pci_dev_create:93] > > > ddi_prop_get_int() > > > failed > > > > > > … which repeats three or four times during the installation. > > > > > > After installation is finished, the installation OS goes down, > > > but > > > says… > > > > > > openindiana genunix:WARNING: xhci has no quiesce() > > > reboot: not all drivers have implemented quiesce(9E) > > > Please see veradm/messages for drivers that haven’t implemented > > > quiesce(9E) > > > Failed to process boot arguments from Boot Environment. > > > Falling back to regular reboot > > > > > > Then on reboot, the boot comes up but gives… > > > > > > WARNING: pci@0,0pci8086,f35@14/storage@3/disk@0,0 (sd0): > > > Commend failed to complete… Device is gone > > > Warning: Pool “rpool” has encountered an uncorrectable I/O > > > failure > > > and > > > has been suspended; “zpool clear” will be required before the > > > poor > > > can > > > be written to. > > > Warning: pci@0,0/pci8086/f35@14/storage@3 (scsa2usb0): Reinserted > > > device is accessible again. > > > Warning: Pool “rpool” has encountered an incorrectable I/O > > > failure > > > and > > > has been suspended; “zpool clear” will be required before the > > > poor > > > can > > > be written to. > > > > > > ...that last repeats three times and the unit sits there. > > > > > > I did try searching for devices with no drivers, but the only > > > thing > > > that came up were the two processor cores. > > > > > > I did try creating a Solaris 2 partition and installing to a > > > partition > > > instead of the EFI whole disk option, but that failed on fdisk > > > and > > > didn’t even install the files. I had to destroy the partition > > > table > > > in > > > order to get back to getting the installation to work. > > > > > > Also, in the installer, when I tried to go to a partition > > > installation > > > and pressed F5 to change the partition type, it would go back to > > > the > > > installation menu again, so I’m presuming that it just doesn’t > > > like > > > the > > > USB as a target. > > > > > > I’ve got an ugly feeling that I’ve got no way of getting around > > > this. > > > Yes, I know I can put the SATA drives in and make a slice for > > > rpool, > > > but where’s the fun in that? > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > openindiana-discuss mailing list > > > openindiana-discuss@openindiana.org > > > https://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > openindiana-discuss mailing list > > > openindiana-discuss@openindiana.org > > > https://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss > > > > _______________________________________________ > > openindiana-discuss mailing list > > openindiana-discuss@openindiana.org > > https://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss > > > > _______________________________________________ > openindiana-discuss mailing list > openindiana-discuss@openindiana.org > https://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss _______________________________________________ openindiana-discuss mailing list openindiana-discuss@openindiana.org https://openindiana.org/mailman/listinfo/openindiana-discuss