Memory Amount Confusion

[MasterMark]

Using an Asus AMD FM2 Motherboard , AMD A8-5600K CPU and installed (2) DDR3 1600Mhz , 4GB chips
for a total of 8 GB of RAM. Under system information, running FreeNas -9.2.1.3 it is showing the memory
at 2083 MB ? Is there a reason I would not see this around 8GB? I am noticing a slow READ/WRITE
time when accessing files, and am wondering if this could be part of my problem.. New user, so please
take it easy on me...

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[danb35]

If the system is only seeing 2 GB of RAM, that would certainly explain slow read/write performance. I understand there's a history of trouble with AMD processors and FreeBSD, but I don't have any detail on that. Does your BIOS see the full amount of memory? And are you running the 64-bit version of FreeNAS?

 

[cyberjock]

Do you have the 32 bit version of FreeNAS installed on accident? That's kind of what it sounds like...

 

[MasterMark]

Thanks for the quick reply. Yes the Bios does show the full 8GB of RAM . I am running the x86 version of FreeNas. Can't remember for sure why the 64bit version won't load.

 

[cyberjock]

You can't use more than 4GB of system RAM with the x86. Also since you are on the x86 you shouldn't be using ZFS. In fact, future FreeNAS release will not have an x86 version because it's just not necessary nor recommended.

What was supposed to happen was UFS users use the x86 and ZFS users use the x64. The problem was ZFS users were using the x86 (which is very dangerous). We've gotten rid of all UFS support in FreeNAS so there's no reason to make an x86 version anymore.

If I were you I'd figure out why x64 isn't work for you and solve it (you may have to get new hardware.. we have a reason why we avoid AMD... )

 

[MasterMark]

Cyberjock - thanks for your input. I am reading your Newbe Powerpoint as we speak... What kind of trouble will I get to if I reinstall using the 64 bit
version. I've got around 250 GB of data stored in a variety of ZFS Volumes.. Hope I'm not too screwed on this!

 

[cyberjock]

If the 64 bit works you can do an "upgrade" from the 32-bit to 64-bit and it should "just work".

If you decide you need new hardware all you need to do is install the 64-bit version on your boot media, take the drives and connect them to the new hardware, and then do a config upload to FreeNAS. Two automatic reboots later everything will be exactly like it was but on new hardware.

 

[MasterMark]

Got an error when I tried to do the 64-bit upgrade. "archtectures do not match" (x86 != x64)
So tomorrow I will try a new 64-bit install again with the boot disc. I have saved a copy of
the config file , and am doing a separate data backup on my storage.
Thanks for taking your time to help me out.

 

[cyberjock]

Darn. Guess iX fixed that "feature". You used to be able to mix and match them. We had quite a few people that accidentally installed x86 from x64, so it's probably a good thing that this was fixed.

 

[MasterMark]

Cyberjock - Well the 64-bit reinstall was a complete success and painless. I now am seeing the full 8GB of RAM. The only thing I was
not able to perform was an install on a USB Flash drive. It showed my Main 80GB hard and the two 1.5TB drives but no USB. So I
went ahead and installed FreeNas on the 80GB drive. I'm sure it's a Bios thing. I'll look in to it later. Thanks Much!

 

[MasterMark]

Things have been going much better! Read/Writes are very good now. The only thing I am noticing on my log is the following error:

Sep 18 10:05:41 freenas winbindd[76163]: [2014/09/18 10:05:41.972119, 0, pid=76163, effective(0, 0), real(0, 0), class=winbind] ../source3/winbindd/winbindd_samr.c:769(sam_rids_to_names)
Sep 18 10:05:41 freenas winbindd[76163]: sam_rids_to_names: possible deadlock - trying to lookup SID S-1-5-21-1172303283-2803752866-454636820

It's always the same SID #. Get the message every few minutes.

 

[Knowltey]

That's just a known bug in the current release version of FreeNAS. You can choose to ignore it unless it's causing you issues, which it shouldn't be. There is a thread on it though with some fixes if you'd like: http://forums.freenas.org/index.php...possible-deadlock-trying-to-lookup-sid.21982/