FreeNAS Server(A) to Server(B) upgrade / file copies

[KeithHyer]

Let me start with this - a while back, I build a FreeNAS server ( see my intro message posted earlier today ) - all from the knowledge I got reading through this forum. THANK YOU ALL!

I tried several searches here in the forums and maybe I just am using incorrect terms - so any help / guidance is appreciated! If I get some of the terminology incorrect below, please know that I am just enthusiast and by no means a pro. I welcome your comments and correction(s) to learn more though!


My question is this:
What's the fastest / best practice method to copy data ( ie NAS contents ) from one FreeNAS server to another?

- I was trying RoboCopy via a 3rd machine - but that seems to take about 24hrs per TB.

I am not necessarily looking for a step-by-step here - though I wouldn't turn it down ;) - just a push in the right direction. I'm willing to do some homework - that's part of the fun!



Here's what I'm working with:
My current setup is (8) 3TB drives and (7) 2TB drives - both sets of drives are configured Raid-Z2 volumes. I then joined them and presented a single storage pool of 25.1TB.

My goal
Now I'm planning to upgrade incrementally - I know with FreeNAS that you can't "just add drives" - like I said, I've read lots of forum posts!

So I'm planning a similar process with an additional set of (5) 10TB WD Red drives also in Raid-Z2 (+25.2 TB). This NAS will be on a new server - I'm taking this opportunity to upgrade from my old system's FreeNAS 9.10.2-U6 to 11.0-U4, encrypt at rest, etc. Once the data is off the old system, I'll pull the largest drives to make an additional pool in the new box.

Hope that makes sense - if not, let me know and I'll try to clarify or add details if that is helpful. I appreciate any help or insight you're willing to offer. I look forward to your responses!


Thanks,
-KeithHyer-

“They did not know it was impossible so they did it” - Mark Twain

 

[MatthewSteinhoff]

What's the fastest / best practice method to copy data ( ie NAS contents ) from one FreeNAS server to another?

FreeNAS has snapshotting and replication baked it and it works exceptionally well.

Cheers,
Matt

 

[garm]

You are looking for either zfs send or rsync, don’t go through a third machine, it’s really inefficient.

https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=zfs

 

[danb35]

You are looking for either zfs send or rsync,

ZFS send--rsync is the right answer only if (1) you're sending the data to something other than a ZFS filesystem, or (2) you aren't operating at the dataset level.