Confirm Pool Importation - OS reinstall

[dsideriu]

For various reasons, I am going to install a new OS in my currently-FreeNAS setup. (Active Directory stopped working in the 'old' OS and I've failed to get it working again.) Plan is to pull the SSD where the FreeNAS-11.2-U8 OS currently lives, add a new SSD and install TrueNAS Core 12.0on that new SSD; this is done while leaving the existing 12x4TB ZFS RAID untouched. (I don't want any of that data going anywhere.) After I get the new TrueNAS OS running smoothly (Active Directory, services, etc.), then I will add the existing ZFS pool to the new NAS setup.

From my read of the TrueNAS documentation (https://www.truenas.com/docs/core/storage/pools/poolimport/), this should be as simple as using "Storage/Pools/ADD" then select "Import existing pool", select the 'old' ZFS pool, and done.

Please double check me: this appears very straightforward - am I missing anything? Or are there any surprises that I may encounter? I don't care about the share setup that I currently have - I can recreate all of the shares, but I absolutely need this ZFS pool to stay intact.

 

[Alecmascot]

Is your pool encrypted ?
Do you have any jails ?
If not, and you are prepared to rebuild the whole of the configuration, your plan looks ok.
You cannot make any shares before the pool is imported.

 

[dsideriu]

Thank you! - Yes, the pool is not encrypted. I have never used jails, but when I check the Pools list, there are two jails listed. But nothing is inside those jails. Honestly, I don't even recall creating those jails - I'm not sure why they're there.

I am prepared to rebuild the whole config from scratch. Apart from Active Directory, it's mostly the NFS and SMB shares, which I've documented.

 

[sretalla]

I'm not sure why you would waste your time re-doing a config you can just restore from a backup...

If it were me, I would remove those jails, take a config backup, do a fresh install on the new SSD, restore the config backup... done.

If you really need to do the config again, make your life simpler by first exporting the pool (Export/Disconnect in the GUI)... make sure to select not to wipe the disks though.

If you don't do that the pool import process will require you to force the import which you can't do from the GUI if I remember right.

 

[dsideriu]

I'm not sure why you would waste your time re-doing a config you can just restore from a backup...

If it were me, I would remove those jails, take a config backup, do a fresh install on the new SSD, restore the config backup... done.

If you really need to do the config again, make your life simpler by first exporting the pool (Export/Disconnect in the GUI)... make sure to select not to wipe the disks though.

If you don't do that the pool import process will require you to force the import which you can't do from the GUI if I remember right.

I'll adjust my procedure to export the pool before starting the new install.