Moving pool to a new set of disks

[Lobanz]

I am currently using a single truenas scale server for both storage and VMs in my small homelab.

TO BE:

• Two servers: truenas server for storage and xcp-ng server for vms
• Truenas and xcp-ng servers connected via 10g ethernet (perhaps via crossover cable, no switch).
• Truenas (with more storage) for xcp-ng VM storage and backup.
• Xen Orchestra running in VM on truenas.
• Then setup truenas backup to some sort of cloud storage (backblaze, etc) which I dont have now, but probly should.

My current truenas is on a 2U, 8x 3.5" bay supermicro server with 4x3tb drives in raidz2 (1 pool, 1vdev, boots off internal SSD). I want to replace these drives with say 8x6tb drives in raidz2 (for example) and use the old 3tb drives on the xcp-ng server (probably something like a dell r720 with 8x 3.5" bays).

I'm a little unclear on the process. I will have the spare "to be" xcp-ng server to help with the transition before xcp-ng is installed on it.

Thinking of a migration process something like this:

• backup existing server config. backup the data somehow if possible.
• install the 8x 6tb drives in the spare server and temporarily install truenas scale and set them up in 1 raidz2 pool with all 8 drives in 1 vdev (dealing with disabling RAID via JBOD etc on new server).
• shut down all the VMs on the existing truenas server.
• use zfs replication to move the data from the existing server to the new pool in the spare server.
• export the new 8-drive pool in the spare server.
• export the old 4-drive pool in the existing server and remove the drives.
• move the 8 drives from the spare server to the existing server and import the pool
• once it is comfirmed that all is well, use the old 4 drives for xcp-ng in the new "spare" server. If something isn't right, reinstall the original drives and import the original pool.

I'm not sure if this is The Right Way to do it. If not, please let me know a better way. Also any input on the direction I'm heading is appreciated.

Some questions I have about this method:

• My main pool is not encrypted, but most of the data (including VM zvols) is in an encrypted dataset that I manually unlock after a boot. Anything special I need to do with the encrypted dataset during this process? I'm guessing that it will just replicate with encryption intact. I don't need unlock it on the spare server. It just needs to unlock when the new pool is imported back into the original server.
• Will all my existing truenas VMs still work properly? I would guess so, but I just dont know if they would become "disconnected" from their zvols somehow when the original pool is exported and replaced.
• Will all the snapshots be preserved in this process? I would guess so.
• Will all the network configuration, users, permissions be preserved? I would think so since that's in the server config on the boot drive and not in the zfs pool, right?
• After the zfs data migration is complete and xcp-ng is installed on the new server, I should be able to use something like clonezilla to migrate the VMs from truenas to xcp-ng, right? Is there a better way?

Preciate the help.

--- Lobanz

 

[Lobanz]

Any idears?

Got the xcp-ng server ordered! Should be in next week along with associated doodads (including an open-box deal I found on an Optane 900p for an SLOG).

• Dell R720
• 256G RAM
• 2x E5-2690 8 cores, 16 threads @ 3.0GHZ (but I’m upgrading it to E5-2690V2 10 cores)
• 8x 3.5" bays with caddies
• Has 6x 6TB 7200RPM SATA drives in it
• 10g and 1g NICs
• $275 + $80 shipping.

These are the drives I’m gonna move to the TrueNAS server (Supermicro 2x X5680 6 cores@ 3.3 GHz, 192G ram, 8x 3.5" bays).

The pair should be a good foundation for whatever I want to do homelab-wise.

Just gotta figure out how to replace the drives in the TrueNAS and get the existing data moved to them.

--- Lobanz