Replacing the storage disks with larger ones

[blindcoder]

Hello,

I have a TrueNAS-12.0-U8 setup with an SSD as the system disk and four 3TB WD Red disks for storage.
Due to a mistake on my end I have three of the four disks in a RAIDZ1 pool and the fourth one as a standalone storage.
The RAIDZ1 is now reaching its capacity, I'm at 93% and growing. As far as I understand it, it's not possible to add the standalone disk to the RAIDZ1 to increase its storage.

So what I'm looking at is replacing the four current disks with four new disks with at least 6TB each. Now the question is: How do I move the existing data from the current disks to the new disks?
The RAIDZ1 pool contains files, backups, Jails and VMs. that all need to be moved.

I have an X10SLL-F motherboard with 6 SATA ports, so I can't attach all disks simultaneously. I could invest into a PCIe SATA controller, but I don't really want to unless I really have to.

I have enough spare harddisks on my desktop PC (through USB disks that have accumulated...) to store all the data from the RAIDZ1, but how do I properly back up the Jails and VMs? I have searched for solution for that but all I found were undocumented shellscripts. Is there a "definite" guide for backing up your data pool externally for the purpose of HDD upgrades?

Am I looking into an entirely wrong direction?

I did find https://www.ixsystems.com/documentation/freenas/11.3-U5/storage.html#replacing-disks-to-grow-a-pool but that would only replace the three disks that are currently in the RAIDZ1 and not add the fourth disk either.

Thank you all in advance!


Kind regards,
blindcoder

 

[sretalla]

As far as I understand it, it's not possible to add the standalone disk to the RAIDZ1 to increase its storage.

You are right (unless you scrap and rebuild the pool).

I have enough spare harddisks on my desktop PC (through USB disks that have accumulated...) to store all the data from the RAIDZ1, but how do I properly back up the Jails and VMs? I have searched for solution for that but all I found were undocumented shellscripts. Is there a "definite" guide for backing up your data pool externally for the purpose of HDD upgrades?

Am I looking into an entirely wrong direction?

This is probably the process you're looking for...

Howto: migrate data from one pool to a bigger pool

There have been a lot of posts recently about how to move data from one pool to another. Usually it's because folks want to upgrade to a much larger pool and the drive-by-drive resilvering process will take too long. I've recently gone through this as well. Here are the steps that I followed...

www.truenas.com

You would stop your sharing services and jails first, then do the process, then start your sharing and jails again.

 

[blindcoder]

This is probably the process you're looking for...

Howto: migrate data from one pool to a bigger pool

There have been a lot of posts recently about how to move data from one pool to another. Usually it's because folks want to upgrade to a much larger pool and the drive-by-drive resilvering process will take too long. I've recently gone through this as well. Here are the steps that I followed...

www.truenas.com

You would stop your sharing services and jails first, then do the process, then start your sharing and jails again.

That implies that the old and new pool is present in the system at the same time, ie requires PCIe-SATA controller.
Is there an option for "off-system" backup of the pool? I'm fine with the system being down for a few days.

 

[c77dk]

One note - consider going to raidz2.

 

[blindcoder]

One note - consider going to raidz2.

Why? and how?

 

[c77dk]

Why? and how?

If you have to replace a disk in a raidz1 with your disk sizes there's a risk of another disk failing due to stress. With raidz2 you're able to loose 2 disks without loosing the data.

I saw a nice comparison here in the forums, where it's shown in "grid layout" - but my search skills just isn't able to dig it up right now :-(

As for how to do it - when you create the new pool (you have to do this anyway), just choose raidz2 in the layout suggestion, instead of raidz1.

It'll cost you some space, so it's a decision for you to make, if you want extra space, or extra peace of mind.

 

[Etorix]

Why? For data safety, as raidz1 gets more and more insecure as drive size grows.

Is the "standalone" drive a distinct pool or is it part of a pool with the raidz1 vdev? In the latter case, you really, really, should change the pool layout: Failure of the standalone drive would take down the entire pool and lose all the data.

How? Backup data, destroy old pool, create new pool and restore.
With an extra HBA (LSI SAS HBA rather than "PCIe SATA controller") you could create the new pool with new drives in the same system, replicate data to the new pool, offline the old pool and remove its drives (along with the HBA). Alternatively, set up another NAS and replicate through the network—if you have a spare motherboard.

 

[rupayan0504041]

Hello Everyone

I have a Freenas Mini with 4*4TB=16TB system. I want to upgrade it with 4*14TB HDD. I already purchased the hard drives "Western Digital 14TB WD Red Plus NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD - 7200 RPM, SATA 6 GB/s, CMR, 512 MB Cache, 3.5" - WD140EFGX." Can anyone tell me whether this will be compatible with the Freenas mini or not? Thank you.

 

[Samuel Tai]

Hello Everyone

I have a Freenas Mini with 4*4TB=16TB system. I want to upgrade it with 4*14TB HDD. I already purchased the hard drives "Western Digital 14TB WD Red Plus NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD - 7200 RPM, SATA 6 GB/s, CMR, 512 MB Cache, 3.5" - WD140EFGX." Can anyone tell me whether this will be compatible with the Freenas mini or not? Thank you.

Yes, any CMR drive will work.

 

[glauco]

I have done something similar in the past.
I can't remember the steps exactly but If I were you, I would:

• buy a huge drive the capacity of your zfs pool + 20% that you're eventually going to return
• buy a set of bigger drives for your new and improved zfs pool
• replicate your existing zfs pool to the huge drive
• remove your existing data drives
• boot up, import your one-drive temporary, replicated pool and test it
• install your new drives
• replicate from your one-drive pool to the new pool
• return the huge drive

 

[Samuel Tai]

There's no need to destroy and recreate the pool.

Disk Replacement

Describes how to replace a disk and restore the hot spare in TrueNAS CORE.

www.truenas.com

 

[blindcoder]

If you have to replace a disk in a raidz1 with your disk sizes there's a risk of another disk failing due to stress. With raidz2 you're able to loose 2 disks without loosing the data.

So it's like a raid 6 then? Instead of raid 5?

Is the "standalone" drive a distinct pool or is it part of a pool with the raidz1 vdev? In the latter case, you really, really, should change the pool layout: Failure of the standalone drive would take down the entire pool and lose all the data.

The standalone drive is its own pool and acts as a "dump" drive whenever I need to offload data for a short time, for example when uploading a few hundred GB worth of images for the Zomboid map website or such. I don't use it as part of the actual data-storage pool, or for anything that I couldn't recreate easily otherwise.


So I take it there's no "in-place" upgrade path, unless I want to remain with three drives in the pool. That's not the answer I was hoping for, but it answers the question nonetheless, thank you everyone!

 

[c77dk]

So it's like a raid 6 then? Instead of raid 5?

Yup, same problem