1 Boot drive, it failed. Is it possible to install a new boot drive and keep the data that was on the pools?

[Cephandrius]

Sadly I didn't set up a redundant boot drive and its kicking me in the butt. Had a Kingston 240gb SSD as a boot drive because it was pulled from a budget pc I had built, the drive was only a few months purchased before being pulled for its new purpose. Figured it'd last much longer. Its been probably 3 or 4 months since then and it has failed somehow. Have a Samsung 120gb SSD on the way to replace it, but I have quite a bit of stuff stored on my pools and I'm not sure how to go about recovering the data on the pool? Is there a way to re-establish the pools I had with the new OS? Also, I'll be ordering another Samsung SSD to set up a boot pool. Like I should have done in the first place. Would appreciate any help I can get. New drive arrives tomorrow. Thanks!

 

[Arwen]

Yes, the data pool(s) and any data files on them are fine.

If you have a config saved, you can restore it after re-installing TrueNAS. Then your setup should be exactly where it was. There is even a way to extract the configuration from the system dataset, which might be on your data pool. I don't have the details, but others might / would.

 

[Cephandrius]

Yes, the data pool(s) and any data files on them are fine.

If you have a config saved, you can restore it after re-installing TrueNAS. Then your setup should be exactly where it was. There is even a way to extract the configuration from the system dataset, which might be on your data pool. I don't have the details, but others might / would.

Thank you! That is a huge help! I do not have a config saved, but I have seen that TrueNAS automatically saves it every so often. Just need to figure out how to access it from the pool. I have also seen on a LTT forum about being able to just import the pool from a fresh TrueNAS install, without needing to use a Config. Need to figure out more about that method too, in case that's what I have to do

 

[sretalla]

The automatic config backup goes into your system dataset, which will be in your first data pool.

Unfortunately, that's super-problematic to access, since a new install also has a system dataset called exactly the same thing which needs to be mounted while it runs.

You need to install a fresh copy of TrueNAS, then import your pool, then mess around with the mounting of the old system dataset into a location that can be accessed, then extract the config, download it to your computer for temporary storage, export the data pool to avoid conflicts when the config restore causes it to mount again in a different copy of TrueNAS... it's a lot and not for beginners.

If your config wasn't complicated, just import your pool on a new install and make a fresh one. (then get in the habit of having a config backup handy somewhere outside the pool in future ... @joeschmuck 's SMART(multi-report does an excellent job of doing that for you... https://www.truenas.com/community/resources/multi_report-sh-version-for-core-and-scale.179/).

 

[Cephandrius]

The automatic config backup goes into your system dataset, which will be in your first data pool.

Unfortunately, that's super-problematic to access, since a new install also has a system dataset called exactly the same thing which needs to be mounted while it runs.

You need to install a fresh copy of TrueNAS, then import your pool, then mess around with the mounting of the old system dataset into a location that can be accessed, then extract the config, download it to your computer for temporary storage, export the data pool to avoid conflicts when the config restore causes it to mount again in a different copy of TrueNAS... it's a lot and not for beginners.

If your config wasn't complicated, just import your pool on a new install and make a fresh one. (then get in the habit of having a config backup handy somewhere outside the pool in future ... @joeschmuck 's SMART(multi-report does an excellent job of doing that for you... https://www.truenas.com/community/resources/multi_report-sh-version-for-core-and-scale.179/).

Thank you for the details! My config wasn't anything too crazy. The main thing is the data on the drives. As long as I can just import the pool and not wipe the drives in the process then I can set everything back up the way it used to be. Then add fail safes for the config. And have a boot pool in case this kind of thing happens again.