Migrating to a new server with HDD expand

[Johev]

Dear community,

A few months back I built my first FreeNAS box. For that I've used a Dell T20 (E3-1225v3) with 12GB of ECC RAM and my main RAIDZ consisting of 3*4TB Seagate NAS HDDs. The server still works 100%, with +160 days of uptime. The only issue I have is with the upgrade from 9.3 to 9.1 it never worked and therefore I'm still on the previous architecture. Even though all is working fine and probably because I come here more often than I should (I'm addicted to new Freenas news and features), I've decided to upgrade and have something a bit more future proof (more space) and good IPMI. I've also took the opportunity to build another one for a family member.

So I've built 2 identical boxes:
E3-1265Lv3
Supermicro X10SL7-F
32Gb ECC Corsair RAM
and 6 Seagate NAS HDDs

For my server I only bought 3 additional HDDs, as I'm going to be re-using the ones in my Dell server.

Now for the issue: I need to transfer the information from the Dell server to my new FreeNAS server and re-use the 3 HDDs in the Dell server in the process (this should give me a 6HDD RAIDZ2)

My first idea was to setup one box (with all new 6 HDD's), transfer everything there. Dismantle my current server, add the HDDs in the new box, create a RAIDZ2 and transfer the information back.
The only issue is that I only have laptops (ultrabooks) without RJ45 (they use wireless). That's why I would like to ask if there would be a way for one FreeNAS to just grab the information from another one, without needing to have a laptop on and using my wireless connection to reroute the data.

Any help and ideas would be greatly appreciated. :)

 

[danb35]

That's why I would like to ask if there would be a way for one FreeNAS to just grab the information from another one, without needing to have a laptop on and using my wireless connection to reroute the data.

Indeed there is. Check out http://doc.freenas.org/9.10/storage.html#replication-tasks.

 

[Johev]

Thank you @danb35 for the quick reply. Would it be possible to have this without the encryption part. All servers are at my place on my home network and I would not like to have something go wrong and not be able to access the data afterwards.
Many thanks.

 

[Chris Moore]

Thank you @danb35 for the quick reply. Would it be possible to have this without the encryption part. All servers are at my place on my home network and I would not like to have something go wrong and not be able to access the data afterwards.
Many thanks.

The data is encrypted during the transfer over the network, but that doesn't affect what is stored on the pool. There is not a lot of slowdown due to encryption. It will go quite quickly.
The advantage of this is that it is initiated from the command line and runs directly from on NAS to the other without having to touch any other network device.
Once you think you have it copied, do a lot of testing with the new data-set before you wipe the old system.

Be sure to let us know how it works out or if you have any other questions.

 

[Johev]

@Chris Moore
Thank you for that clarification. This is exactly what I needed , I will try it and let you know.
On a side note:

• is it worth saving the configuration of my current FreeNAS and importing it in the new box (the provisional one which will only hold the data until I can dump it back to my new server)

• should I connect the two servers directly or using a gigabit router would be OK? No 10GBit interfaces are installed and my current router is a Fritz!box 7490.

Many thanks to both for your advice.

 

[Chris Moore]

@Chris Moore
Thank you for that clarification. This is exactly what I needed , I will try it and let you know.
On a side note:

• is it worth saving the configuration of my current FreeNAS and importing it in the new box (the provisional one which will only hold the data until I can dump it back to my new server)

• should I connect the two servers directly or using a gigabit router would be OK? No 10GBit interfaces are installed and my current router is a Fritz!box 7490.

Many thanks to both for your advice.

If you load the configuration of your current system on the new system, you would have a name and IP address conflict as soon as the new system booted back up. If you have a complicated configuration, it might be worth the hassle, but I have been in that place and I just configured the new NAS from scratch comparing the configuration to the old NAS, side-by-side, so to speak. Until you take the old NAS off the network, your new NAS will need a different name and address. Once the old NAS is gone, you can change the name and address of the new NAS if it suits you.
I am not familiar with that router. You would want the servers to have the fastest possible communication. I would have them each connected to a switch, but if your switch/router does not have Gigabit Ethernet you could use a crossover cable to connect the routers directly to one another. This would cause you to need to set the IP addresses on those ports manually for sure.

 

[Stux]

One way is to use six of the new drives in your server, then replicate to it.

Then replace 3 of the drives on at a time with the old drives.

Then use those 3 drives + 3 more drives to build the second server.

You should burnin test all the drives, including your 3 old drives (after copying their data but before using)

Can burnin test final 3 drives while your waiting to replicate the original 3 drives and resilver them.