Just before Christmas, iXsystems released version 9.2 of their FreeNAS system.
The release notes (here) give a list of the new and improved features. In the past I’ve always found the upgrades to be a quick and painless process. iXsystems and the FreeNAS community have a reputation for delivering rock-solid releases, so I have no hesitation in moving my storage to the latest release when then move from the RC status to a full release version.
I use the GUI updater, so I don’t need to have physical access to the FreeNas server itself.
- 0922 start to download the GUI upgrade (122MB)
- 0923: read upgrade process in the manual (starting on p43). Same process as before
- 0924: save the current settings
- 0929: stop the running services and upload the new image. Start a ping trace to Freenas
- 0930: copy and paste the checksum from the download page. Press next and see the reboot message in the browser. (I didn’t even need to refresh the browser)
(Because I was doing this from a windows machine, i opened a command window and typed:
ping -t 192.168.10.150 (this is the IP address of my Freenas.)
( The -t option is needed in windows, otherwise it just pings 5 times and then stops. )
Total time to upgrade the system was about 10 minutes.
Initial checks: There are a few jails performing functions such as dns/dhcp serving, web proxying and database services. I went to the jails tab and saw all were running on the server. I then was able to connect to all services and verify that they were all visible and accessible on the network.
The status indicator in the top right was flashing amber, and clicking on it displayed this message:
Warning: The volume vol1 (ZFS) status is ONLINE: One or more devices are configured to use a non-native block size. Expect reduced performance.Replace affected devices with devices that support the configured block size, or migrate data to a properly configured pool.
I looked through the forums here and the bug tracker here and this is an acknowledged issue, and whilst it is irritating, it is not a warning of an imminent failure, so I don’t need to address it immediately.