Move discs from motherboard SATA to HBA

[Pixeltje]

Hi,

Somewhere last January I've set up a computer with FreeNAS and told it to be storage, time machine, FTP server and FireFly server (currently running 8.04 Multimedia). When I bought all the components for the NAS I figured that four disks would suit my needs for the (near) future and therefore bought an Intel m-ITX motherboard that has only 4 SATA ports on it. Now I see that the 4TB disc-space is far to small (might be noticeable that my dad and some friends also store backups at the NAS). I've tried to encourage the discs to grow but they wouldn't listen to me, so I'm about to buy a LSI HBA to be able to attatch more discs.

I'd prefer to move all the discs to the HBA, mainly due to lack of room for decent cablemanagement in the small Fractal case. I'd like to know how to move the raidz2 array to the HBA. Do I need to export the entire array and then import it again once hooked up to the HBA, or can I just connect the discs to the HBA and then boot up the NAS again and all will be sorted?

Thanks for helping!

 

[ProtoSD]

Hi Pixeltje,

I would try what you suggested, export the pool, then reimport after switching the disks to the new controller. Sometimes FreeNAS doesn't handle that very well and the database will still have the disks assigned to the old controller. Make sure you backup your settings also. If FreeNAS doesn't import your pool properly, I wrote a tutorial in my blog on how to fix it:

http://protosd.blogspot.com/2011/12/useful-commands-for-diagnosingmanaging.html

If you still need help, post back or send me a PM, but do what you suggested first.

 

[Pixeltje]

Thanks, I will try to move the array. The controller will probably arrive anytime this week. I'll keep you updated if something goes wrong.