Hard drive replacement

[mazdajai]

I am planning to replace 4x1.5TB in a NAS BOX to 5x1.0TB. What is the best way to do this?

1. Migrate existing data, destroy old array. Create new array, copy back data.
2. Replace existing drive one by one (Not sure if this works?)

 

[dlavigne]

1. is the safest and most likely the quickest.

2. depends upon the type of RAIDZ, the ZFS version, and your patience for replacing one disk at a time and waiting for resilvering. Instructions are at http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Volumes#Replacing_Drives_to_Grow_a_ZFS_Pool. Note that in a RAIDZ1 if one disk fails during the resilver, the pool is lost, so make sure you have a full backup. Which brings us back to why #1 is the safest and most likely the quickest method.

 

[mazdajai]

#1 - I don't have spare drives to temporary stage the data, looks like I need to figured that out.

#2 - Didn't know it work even work if I replace different size of drive, looks like I rather go with #1.