Clone data from existing HDD to bigger HDD

[grimer]

Hi,

I bought a HP Proliant G7 N54L a few months ago. It came with a 250GB drive, which was enough space to get a Plex server up and running.

I've now managed to configure OwnCloud and things are going well. The 250GB HDD isn't really big enough to accommodate my family's OwnCloud data and Plex requirements. I've ordered a 4TB Hitachi drive. What I'd like to do is:

1. Fit the Hitachi drive alongside the 250GB drive
2. Copy all data/jails/etc from the 250GB drive to the 4TB drive
3. Remove the 250GB drive
4. Buy another 4TB drive in the next couple of months, once I've got a bit more cash, and configure RAID so that the NAS can withstand a drive failure.

Is that a simple task?

What about the following?

1. Add the 4TB drive
2. 'partition' the 4TB drive (volumes?) so that it contains a 250GB 'partition' and the other 3.75TB in another 'partition'
3. Clone all the data currently on the 250GB drive onto this new 250GB section on the new HDD.
4. Create a kind of bastardised RAID 1 where the 250GB section of the 4TB drive is mirrored by the existing 250GB HDD.
5. Use the remaining 3.75TB of the 4TB drive as a 'media' folder referenced by the Plex jail. Obviously, this wouldn't be backed up anywhere, but I can accept that risk until I get a second 4TB drive.

I appreciate this might seem like a really dumb question for some of the ZFS experts here, but I'm a n00b, so please be gentle.

Thanks,

Rob

 

[cyberjock]

You can't do 1-5 without serious reconfiguring. FreeNAS is designed use a disk as a single zfs device. No partitioning (outside of what it already does) so trying to do a 250GB partition and a 3.75GB partition isn't going to happen.

 

[grimer]

That's a shame. Is the first scenario possible - i.e. copy the data to the new drive and then remove the old one? I'd really like to avoid having data spanning both drives.

 

[cyberjock]

Yes, but it's non-trivial to do. Moving jails isn't easy to do. You're probably better off just deleting the jails, moving the rest of your data, then recreating the jail on your new pool.

This is one of many reasons why we recommend you build it right the first time. I know it kind of sucks for those that haven't done FreeNAS before because they don't want to jump into $1000 investment until they are sure they can handle it. But there's limitations with it and moving jails isn't "super easy".

 

[grimer]

OK. Hopefully, that shouldn't be too much of a hassle. The router is already configured, so I guess I can just reuse the MAC addresses of the jails.

Can you point me towards an easy guide for transferring the data?

 

[cyberjock]

Transferring your non-jail data? Either "cp" from the command line, zfs snapshots and replication, or create a new share on the new drive and move the data from share to share.

There's plenty of options, it's just about applying the technology that is most friendly for your situation. I'd do zfs replication as that's probably the fastest and easiest.

 

[grimer]

Hi CyberJock,

Thanks for your help. I found another thread you responded to before.

http://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/upgrade-replace-single-hard-drive.19017/

Is this something you'd actually recommend or is it likely to cause problems regarding the jails, etc.

Thanks,

Rob

 

[cyberjock]

It's the closest to "recommended' without breaking some of our other recommendations. There's definite risk that things could go badly but I've done it and helped others do it and it worked.