Migrating data+snapshots from one FreeNAS box to another

[leonroy]

I have a FreeNAS box with a single ZFS volume and several datasets on it. Each dataset has a few hundred snapshots.

I wanted to take the box down for some long term maintenance and was wondering what best practises are for migrating my data from the first box to a new second box whilst keeping my snapshots intact.

The second box already has a few datasets and enough room to handle the additional data.

 

[pirateghost]

Zfs replication

 

[depasseg]

Zfs replication

I've always wondered about this as well. So let's assume we replicate a dataset snapshot from system A to B and then shut down A. We then configure the shares on B to be accessible and use it or some considerable amount of time. So now the files on B are no longer the same as A. When it's time to bring A back online, do we have to completely destroy the original dataset and snapshots in order to replicate from B to A? Is it advisable to use the GUI to do this one time replication? the CLI?

 

[leonroy]

Ok, followed the FreeNAS Users Guide section on replication. Verified steps in the Troubleshooting section to confirm it works and that I can successfully ssh and zfs send from the PUSH to the PULL server.

How do I kick off the list of replication tasks in the FreeNAS WebGui without waiting till midnight?

 

[Apollo]

I found it is much quicker to perform a CLI replication that will make the exact copy of server A to server B.
The GUI version will be excruciatingly slow when updating small snapshots.

 

[Fei]

Hi

you can use zfs send & recv on CLI.
follow steps as below , you will migrate server A all snapshot to server B

Ex:
Server A
volume name = volA
Dataset name = A
snapshot : volA/A@day1 , volA/A@day2 , volA/A@day3........volA/A@day100

Server B
volume name = volB

<full migration>

Code:

zfs send volA/A@day1 | ssh root@<remote IP or host> zfs recv -Fv volB/A

<incremental migration>

Code:

zfs send -I volA/A@day1 volA/A@day100 | ssh root@<remote IP or host> zfs recv -ev volB/A