Before hot-eject: how do I tell FreeNAS I'm done with the disk?

[seanm]

I'm looking to use a single large disk as an offsite backup. I'll bring it into the office periodically, hot-insert it (yes my hardware supports that), use 'zfs send' to update it, then... I'm unclear what to do before physically hot-ejecting it. I know I need to tell the system to stop using the disk, but I'm unsure what verb FreeNAS and/or ZFS nomenclature uses. Do I want 'zfs offline', 'zfs unmount', or 'zfs export'? Can I do it from the GUI?

Thanks.

 

[Johnny Fartpants]

'Detach Volume' from the GUI but *DONT* 'Mark the disks as new' otherwise that will wipe the data.

 

[danb35]

If the pool is showing up in the GUI, in 11.2, you'd use "Export/Disconnect": https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.2-U5/storage.html#export-disconnect-a-pool. If it isn't showing up in the GUI in the first place (though it should), you'd use zpool export.

 

[seanm]

Thanks both.

Interestingly, after pressing "Export/Disconnect", the confirmation box uses the word "detach" (probably leftover from 9.x).

So is the actual ZFS operation a 'zpool export'?

 

[danb35]

So is the actual ZFS operation a 'zpool export'?

Yes.

 

[seanm]

Thx. Another question, why does the confirmation box say: "Back up any critical data before exporting/disconnecting a pool." Why would ejecting a disk warrant backing up first?

 

[seanm]

I made some suggestions based on my experiences: https://jira.ixsystems.com/browse/NAS-102733

 

[danb35]

Why would ejecting a disk warrant backing up first?

I couldn't really say. Wild guesses include (1) the warning includes the possibility that you've checked the box to destroy data, and/or (2) the data certainly won't be available on the system once the pool's exported.