Making a USB Boot Drive (Backup) from SSD

[SteveDorr]

Hi,
Is there software available which would clone my boot SSD to a USB stick? I realize after I built my latest NAS that I had a single point of failure which was the boot drive. I do not have any more SATA ports without adding a PCI card. I was thinking if I could setup a routine that would weekly or monthly do a full copy of my boot drive to a USB stick (that would be bootable) I would have fault tolerance if my boot drive ever fails or corrupts. If I swap out the USB stick every month I could have 3-4 backups in case something was undetected for awhile.

But I'm stuck at how to get the right "stuff" onto the USB drive so it boots and could take over if the SSD fails. I noticed a lot of articles going the other way from USB boot to SSD, and one that talked about USB Boot sticks at a high level. I'm definitely a newbie, but I am happy to learn if anyone has a link or thread they think is relevant.

Thanks!

 

[Kris Moore]

Boot devices are considered "disposable" in the sense that you can re-load it anytime, import your configuration file and then continue on.

I'd recommend setting up a routine where you backup your configuration file periodically (Our TrueCommand service does this for you automatically as well). As long as you have that configuration intact, worst case if you lose the boot device, you just reload on a fresh one, import configuration and you are back in business.

 

[Marschmellow1337]

There is the option by adding a disk you can attach this drive to the boot pool. Making it a mirror.
Since you don't have anymore SATA ports free you can try it with a USB drive.

Just plug in in and try it. You can then leave the USB drive plugged in (if possible for you)

This way any change is automatically written to the 2 drives and you have a live backup if any of the 2 fail.

 

[danb35]

Since you don't have anymore SATA ports free you can try it with a USB drive.

...but only if the USB drive is at least as large as the existing SSD.

 

[Marschmellow1337]

...but only if the USB drive is at least as large as the existing SSD.

Not sure about that. Since truenas doesnt need much space for boot/install media I assumed its not a problem.

But: USB drives are not that expensive these days, even for bigger size.

But but: He can also buy the same size SSD and buy a USB to sata adapter, those things also don't cost much.

Correct me if I'm wrong, then I know for future

 

[NugentS]

As an alternative: Just run a script that emails you the config every day / week. Rebuilding a TN NAS with a config available is a few minutes work. The config contains almost everything (I have noticed that B2 credentials do not seem to be in the config file) you need to simply rebuild the NAS.

USB Flash drives are not reccomended, but the use of an M.2 to USB adapter (and the appropriate M.2 Drive, or SATA SSD to USB) works very well as either a primary boot, or mirror copy

 

[danb35]

Not sure about that.

I'm pretty sure about that. Regardless of how much space is being used, you're still mirroring a drive (at least, a partition that takes most of the drive), and you can't do that with a smaller device.

 

[NugentS]

I'm pretty sure about that. Regardless of how much space is being used, you're still mirroring a drive (at least, a partition that takes most of the drive), and you can't do that with a smaller device.

@danb35 is correct. Its a mirror so as a minimum has to be the same size. One of the mechanisms to be able to use space on the boot disks in a data pool is to build TN on a small drive, mirror to a large drive, remove the small drive and then mirror the large drive to another large drive. That way you end up with a lot of free space that you can manually add as a pool after partitioning