Just lost 600Gb of data from pool

[Patrick M. Hausen]

How on earth can a zpool have a mirror vdev consisting of a single disk and not be degraded, etc? Sorry, I am at the end of my wits.

You see that there is some inconsistency here?

 

[avalon60]

What 'mechanism' of backup do you refer to here?
Please describe with as much detail as possible.

I used the Backup tool in linux mint to backup my files.
I told the tool which files to back up and also where to back them upto. Last week that location was a folder called 'rob_z97' which was created by the backup tool. That folder and others have since disappeared .

 

[avalon60]

How on earth can a zpool have a mirror vdev consisting of a single disk and not be degraded, etc? Sorry, I am at the end of my wits.

You see that there is some inconsistency here?

Pardon me , but there was a line missing from zpool status Backup_Data. That was error on my part!
The missing line is there now after I reposted the said information

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

OK - that is what sent all of us suspecting a failed disk throughout this discussion. So it's not a problem with your pool on the device level. I guess @winnielinnie hit closest so far.

 

[winnielinnie]

I used the Backup tool in linux mint to backup my files.
I told the tool which files to back up and also where to back them upto. Last week that location was a folder called 'rob_z97' which was created by the backup tool. That folder and others have since disappeared .

"mintbackup" is a notoriously bad tool to use for backups. I mean... really bad.

There's no telling what it might have done to the files on the destination.

There are multiple possibilities.

Is there a silver lining in that the only files that ever lived on this "Backup_Data" pool were simply files that already exist on your Linux Mint user's home folder? If that's the case, consider this a lesson learned, and now you can setup safer and more reliable backups, as well to garner a better understanding of ZFS in general.


EDIT: I just realized how ironic my post looks when you consider my avatar is that of Linux Mint. To clear up some confusion: I don't use Linux Mint anymore, but just adopted the avatar because of the place Linux Mint holds in my heart for nostalgic reasons.

 

[avalon60]

That's risky and also discouraged. One should never use the top-level root dataset to directly save your files within.

And what do you mean you created folders? Via an SMB share? Via some jail? Via the command-line itself?


Here's what I'm guessing happened...

You created your pool.

You never created any datasets underneath the top-level root dataset (to save your files into).

You set this pool to house the System Dataset (".system"), which is fine. This explains the events that deal with ".system".

You set this pool to hold your iocage jails (which you later removed/re-located to another pool?) I ask this because it appears even iocage is gone, and there are "destroy" entries for iocage in your history.

At some point recently, the files/folders that live directly under the top-level root dataset were deleted (not sure why or by what mechanism), and there are no snapshots that exist, thus you cannot revert this.

Another alternative explanation is that you were saving your files inside of a jail directly, and upon changing the location of iocage to another pool, your either lost (or relocated) these files.



To re-import the config file will only restore your settings, not your saved/destroyed data.

Fair comment about the risk, but my knowledge of what was FreeNAS was a lot less than now, but that isn't much either!
Ok, thanks and you are very much correct in what you say.
The only thing is that I didn't save or any files inside a jail, as I had designated folders for various files; ie Pics, rob_z97, and others which I can't recall now.

Thanks for your time and explantions etc .

 

[avalon60]

"mintbackup" is a notoriously bad tool to use for backups. I mean... really bad.

There's no telling what it might have done to the files on the destination.

There are multiple possibilities.

Is there a silver lining in that the only files that ever lived on this "Backup_Data" pool were simply files that already exist on your Linux Mint user's home folder? If that's the case, consider this a lesson learned, and now you can setup safer and more reliable backups, as well to garner a better understanding of ZFS in general.


EDIT: I just realized how ironic my post looks when you consider my avatar is that of Linux Mint. To clear up some confusion: I don't use Linux Mint anymore, but just adopted the avatar because of the place Linux Mint holds in my heart for nostalgic reasons.

i have used the backup tool in linux for a number of years now, and never been any problem. When I last looked in the said folder all the files were there, and upto press I haven't had to restore any of them.

Yes all the files exist in my /home folder and also on a usb stick.
Definitely a lesson learned, and will only add datasets in TrueNAS gui now on the said pool. Regarding the other 2 pools, that is what I did at the time after I created the Backup_Data pool, and they are bot fine.
Thanks again

 

[Dice]

Feel free to come back and 'validate' your best effort setup.