FreeNAS joys and USB woes (USB mirroring tips)

[bigdadda06]

So I came across an article the other days about mirroring your FreeNAS boot device, especially if you are using a USB stick as your boot device. Well I am, so I thought I had better.

So I go down to the local stationery store and pick up a second 16GB USB stick.
I get home plug it in and I can't mirror the boot device.
Despite the advertised size of 16GB on both sticks the new one is a couple of hundred MB smaller than the first one currently booting the system. Bugger. What now?

Then I remembered how easy it is to export and import the system configuration.
So I download the configuration file and shut down the system.
I then pulled out the current USB boot stick and put in the new USB stick and my FreeNAS installer USB boot stick.
I then proceed to build a "new" system.
Once it was done I imported the configuration file I just downloaded, let it reboot and hey presto, all looks like before.
(that is so fantastic that you can do that!)

I then put in what was the boot device and tried and add it to the mirror. Of course because this stick is now slightly bigger that was is now the boot device, so it works.
All within about half and hour.

What a fantastic system.

I hope this is helpful to someone else and that someone on the FreeNAS team sees the positive feedback.

 

[m0nkey_]

Pro tip: Select both USB devices during install. It will automatically create a mirror.