SOLVED Replacing both devices in boot pool

[Wouter]

Morning,

As I had several occasions of the infamous messages "Boot pool status is ONLINE: One or more devices has experienced an unrecoverable error. An attempt was made to correct the error. Applications are unaffected.. " I would like to replace to the faulting USB disk, but I am sure both are somehow not healthy anymore. I have two (see below) identical USB disks, that I want to replace. After reading https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.3-U3.2/system.html#os-device-mirroring
and searching in this forum, lots of topics are created for replacing disks. I read quite a few, but it's too much for reading them all :).

I think I know how to proceed, but just want a double check. At the moment:

Code:

root@box:~ # zpool status -x
all pools are healthy

because I cleared the errors.

I buy two new USB disks with a size bigger than the current, I create a backup via "Save configuration", I put one the FreeNAS box and in the GUI via System, Boot, Actions, Boot Pool Status I replace one of the 2 USB disks. With "zpool status -x" on the CLI I follow the resilvering process. After the resilvering finished, I do these steps again and replace the second faulty / suspected USB disk. Then I remove the two old USB disks. No reboot needed in all these steps, correct?

Thanks for responding!


I am running

Code:

root@box:~ # uname -a
FreeBSD bert.lan 11.3-RELEASE-p9 FreeBSD 11.3-RELEASE-p9 #0 r325575+588899735f7(HEAD): Mon Jun  1 15:04:31 EDT 2020

A (redacted version) list of the disks:

Code:

root@box:~ # camcontrol devlist
<Kingston DT microDuo 3C PMAP>     at scbus10 target 0 lun 0 (pass8,da0)
<Kingston DT microDuo 3C PMAP>     at scbus11 target 0 lun 0 (pass9,da1)

 

[garm]

Download the config, buy a cheap 128 GB SSD and install FreeNAS on it, load the config

 

[Wouter]

Download the config, buy a cheap 128 GB SSD and install FreeNAS on it, load the config

Not really a contentwise answer, but thanks.

 

[Wouter]

What I wanted was to replace both USB thumbdrives; I did not really succeed with my plan, because the new thumb drive I bought lacked a couple of KB's haha :D. So not an option for replacement. After making a new backup (and separate backup of the .ssh folder!) I did a new fresh install of FreeNAS on another USB flash drive and after rebooting I restored the backup, all went fine. The older "faulty" USB thumb drives I'll use as spare stuff. Solved.

 

[subhuman]

Not really a contentwise answer, but thanks.

USB stick as boot pool

This may have been the old approved method to setup FreeNAS but it is no longer recommended and is actively discouraged. Please use an HDD or SSD as your boot pool device. If you presently have a USB stick as your boot pool device replace it with an HDD or SSD before problems or complete...

www.ixsystems.com

However, it is relevant advice.

 

[BetYourBottom]

I'm glad that it went well in the end but I'm with the rest here in recommending you work towards switching to an/some SSDs when you can. You can find relatively cheap small Intel SSDs on Ebay for the price of a USB stick.

Reason I want to harp on this with the rest is because I had my drives fail on me at one point and it really sucks having your machine go down randomly and having to restore from whatever backup you can.

 

[pschatz100]

Also, be certain to backup your configuration on a regular basis. it's easy to do from the GUI and will make it easier to rebuild the system from a fresh install, if necessary.

 

[fakebenwhite]

Download the config, buy a cheap 128 GB SSD and install FreeNAS on it, load the config

So I had a similar issue to OP, and I ended up doing what is recommended here, but when I get back into the UI, all my drive pools are in an "unknown" status, and nothing looks to be configured besides the user accounts.... Am I missing a step or is something missing from the config file?

Update: This appears - at least partially - to be an issue related to system version, as a "zpool import" was telling me the disks were damaged, but there was a note about unavailable features or something of the sort, so I figured I must have an older version loaded...

I've reinstalled with 11.3-U2.1 (previous attempt was 11.2-U8) and the errors are gone, but so are all the drive pools. However, "zpool import" shows the pools available for import by using the "-f" flag.. But I'm not ready to take that step yet.

Final Update: Looks like the first attempt at restoring the saved config failed, and that's why the pools were missing. After a second attempt at the config upload, everything appears to be mostly normal.. Maybe this will help someone else.