Disk Drive Upgrade

[mirth]

Hi. I'm looking to upgrade my TrueNAS data pool. It is comprised of 5 6TB disks in a RAIDz2 configuration. I want to replace these disks with 5 12TB disks. I also have an external USB drive which I've configured as a backup single disk vdev. From my research, I assume that I need replicate the data vdev to a snapshot on the backup vdev. At that point I destroy the data vdev and replace the 5 disks. After that, I recreate the data zpool and vdev from the upgraded disk drives and then "replicate" the snapshot on the backup vdev to the new data vdev. Would this be correct? I'm concerned that destroying the original data vdev will also destroy the snapshot.

Also, is this reverse replication accomplished in the same manner as the original replication, just changing the source and destination drives?

Thanks,
Mike

 

[danb35]

Would this be correct?

No, not at all. Replace the disks, one at a time. Once you've replaced the last disk, the pool capacity will increase.

 

[Whattteva]

You only need to do that replication if you plan to change your vdev layout, a somewhat common scenario that pop on the forums from time to time, but if you just want to expand pool capacity with the same vdev layout. Just replace them one by one as if you have a disk failure.

 

[Etorix]

Best of all, if you have at least one spare port, replace each drive while leaving the old drive in place so there is no loss of redundancy.