Can I remove a drive from my zpool and still use it?

[heppelld0]

i have a server with 12 disks - 4x2tb, 6x1tb, 2x 60gb ssd (one for boot, one for cache). each disk has a 1tb partition and each partition has been added to a zpool of type raidz1 (one drive for parity). i'm looking at swapping out my core components (mobo, cpu, ram, hdd controllers) without losing any of my data so i want to generate a backup from the server before i make any changes, only i don't have enough space to store everything in one go. i have about 2tb of free space left in the zpool.

my plan, in theory, is to remove a 2tb drive from the zpool and reconstruct its data across all the drives left in the server. then move 2tb of data from the server to the newly reclaimed drive and repeat until the server is empty (remove another 2tb, move another 2tb of data etc).

can i do this?

the reason i want to go this way is because i'm not entirely sure i want to stick with freenas and wouldn't mind playing with a few options on physical hardware before i commit to anything and move the data back to the server. (currently looking at OpenIndiana, Ubuntu+fuse-zfs, windows server + software raid5).

if you guys have any more suggestions, please, let me know!

 

[cyberjock]

You don't have to worry about data loss if you are upgrading the motherboard, CPU and RAM. Just plug the hard drives and USB stick into the new computer and it should just bootup as if nothing changed.

If it doesn't(for example, if your pool doesn't mount) then your new hardware probably isn't compatible with FreeNAS. Have no fear though as your data is completely safe as long as you don't go trying to format the drives or something else in that realm. Just plug your hard drives into a compatible controller and then the pool will start mounting automatically.

As for the RAIDZ1, you can't remove or add disks individually to a vdev. Once they are there you can't remove them. In your case, you could remove 1 disk since you have a RAIDZ1. But keep in mind you have zero redundancy so if another disk starts flaking out you will have some data loss. If a disk fails you'll lose the entire pool.

 

[heppelld0]

so if i remove a disk, the pool can't re-jiggle itself to the new space?

 

[pirateghost]

so if i remove a disk, the pool can't re-jiggle itself to the new space?

Nope. That's not how it works.

 

[cyberjock]

Read the guide in my signature. That'll clear up everything for you. :)