Migrate files from Ubuntu Samba server to TrueNAS

[derek786]

Hello. I searched for a similar post and didn’t find one, so here’s my question:

I have the drives for my raid 5 samba server and I wondered if I can migrate to TrueNAS by running Ubuntu server in a container on the same hardware as the TrueNAS server and transfer the shares to the new ZFS pool?

 

[winnielinnie]

You mean fire up an Ubuntu VM within TrueNAS, and use that to "locally" copy everything over to a brand new ZFS pool on the TrueNAS system itself?

You didn't specify, but the Ubuntu storage was not using ZFS in the first place, correct? Some sort of software RAID5, like mdadm?

 

[derek786]

The Ubuntu storage is a software RAID 5 (mdadm) using ext4 filesystem.

 

[derek786]

I had built up a Samba file server, though I was interested rebuilding my old system and liked the integrated appliance approach.

 

[winnielinnie]

The most practical way to do this is to just transfer (i.e, "rsync") from one server to the other over the local network.

Otherwise, as you noted, you'll have to spin up an Ubuntu VM and make available the ext4 filesystem by activating the mdadm array from the drives themselves, and then transferring the data from the VM via NFS to a ZFS dataset on your TrueNAS host.

If you have two separate machines, you'll save yourself the headache by just rsync'ing everything over the network from your Ubuntu server to your TrueNAS server.

 

[derek786]

That would be the most direct. Would a separate data integrity check be needed after moving lots of files over the network?

 

[MrGuvernment]

As noted,just copy the files over to the trueNAS, simpler and quicker overall and less to go wrong and have to play around with.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

That would be the most direct. Would a separate data integrity check be needed after moving lots of files over the network?

rsync does checksums so no, not necessarily.