Broke my flash drive

[xman111]

Hey guys, was moving my server between houses and snapped my flash drive in half. I just installed 11.2-U4 and transferred all my files over to it. What is the best way to recover my system?

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

Hi @xman111. Sorry to hear of your troubles. Have you read the User Guide for your version or searched the forums? If so, are there specific steps or questions that you're having difficulty with?

 

[xman111]

i am just searching around now. I just panicked.. :) I guess my first question is do i need to use 11.2-U4? i see U5 is the new version..

 

[Chris Moore]

Do you have a backup of your config file? If you do, you can install to new media, restore your config and be back up and running.
Your data is still safe in your pool. Even if you don't have a backup of the config, you can install to new media, import your existing pool and recreate your shares. Your data should be fine.

 

[xman111]

hey Chris, i don't have a backup config file, just finished copying over all my movies, kids life pictures, etc. Was bringing it over to my parents house as an off site backup and i snapped the flash drive off the back of the computer. I just ordered 2 flash drives from Amazon, going to do a mirrored install. Would i have to remember my share names or would i be able to see the names of my datasets that I created? Can I use U5 even though my system was U4? just looking around for U4 download.

 

[Chris Moore]

just looking around for U4 download.

You can install the version you like best. They are all right here: https://download.freenas.org/11.2/STABLE/

 

[xman111]

thanks Chris for taking the time to help me, I appreciate it very much. I will be searching for a new wife if I lost all my kids photos :)

 

[Chris Moore]

Would i have to remember my share names or would i be able to see the names of my datasets that I created?

If you do a clean install on new media, then import your pool, you will be able to see your data as it was when the system was last shutdown.
From there, you can setup your file sharing in the way that suits you best.

 

[xman111]

awesome, will have to wait for my flash drives to arrive. have a 4 day long weekend for Canada Day, should give me time to get it all sorted. thanks again.

 

[PhiloEpisteme]

I don't have a backup config file, just finished copying over all my movies, kids life pictures, etc.

Do you recall if you used encryption on the pools or not?

 

[xman111]

I did not use encryption.

 

[xman111]

hey, got it back up and running, no problems at all.. thanks for all the help guys.

 

[JaimieV]

Excellent! Now make a backup - or three - of all those pictures and put them around other people's houses!

You may want to look into Backblaze B2 backup, which FreeNAS can integrate with directly. There are other on-the-internet backup resources of course.

 

[xman111]

thanks Jaimie, just made some copies and moved them around. have tons of media backups that i have collected over the years but it's just the kids pictures and important documents that I really care about, about 250 gb worth. :)

 

[JaimieV]

Yup, family pics are by far my most precious data! It's totally worth setting up an online backup for those - as you say, it's not a large amount.

 

[xman111]

Yup, family pics are by far my most precious data! It's totally worth setting up an online backup for those - as you say, it's not a large amount.

that's for sure Jaimie, most important thing in the world to me and my wife. Just setup Onedrive and backed up all my data to the cloud.