UFS to ZFS

[cosmicx]

UFS to ZFS convertion, is this possible to accomplish?

convert a UFS filesystem to A ZFS, without losing data?

because right now, im in the process of decision making, whether to use UFS or ZFS. Right now, my nas system only has 2GB of memory, but i plan of increasing it to 6Gb later on.

so right now, im thinking of using UFS for my 5x1TB hdd striped, and then maybe when my system's memory is upgraded to 6GB, i will just have to convert UFS to ZFS.

is this possible without losing data?

 

[peterh]

No. You have to store your data somewhere

 

[louisk]

How much data do you need to store right now?

If you could put all this data onto a single (or collection of) USB disks (temporarily), I would say set things up as UFS, start using it. Once you have more memory, copy the data off, shut down, add memory, dump the old volume, create ZFS pool (read FreeNAS docs on ZFS pools and volumes to understand what they mean), setup your share points, and copy data back.

Yes, this will be an expensive (in time) procedure. It will probably also teach you something about FreeNAS, which, if you're going to be relying on it, is good to be familiar with.

 

[cosmicx]

i already re-created the volume using zfs. i will just have to add more memory later on. but what about zfs fool? ... ah i'll read around. thanks guys.

 

[louisk]

With only 2G, you may have some kernel panics if you copy much data on/off. I'd suggest the memory sooner rather than later, even if you only bump to 4G and put off the bump to 6G.

 

[cosmicx]

@louisk

thanks for the advice, i'll do it monday next week.

right now, im copying my imported ntfs volume to my UFS volume. i think it's painfully slow, 4 hours had passed and only 5GB has been copied.
.
i can't monitor how fast the transfer is. i've used the cp -R command. don't know yet how to use rsync

 

[louisk]

Sounds like it might be faster to put it back in the windows box and copy it over the network.

you can use rsync (to copy) like this:
rsync -aPS src_file dst_file
you can use rsync (to move) like this:
rsync --remove-source-files -aPS src_file dst_file

You can substitute directories for files.

 

[cosmicx]

@louisk

thank you again for the answer. i've seen the transfer progress of my rsync transfer. it's averaging to 30MB/s. it so slow, im having an average of 100MB/s when these 4 drives in raid0 under windows.

does transfer speed is affected by ram? currently i still have 2gb ram, using zfs filesystem on 5x1tb drives striped. gonna try transferring via Gigalan.

 

[survive]

Hi Cosmicx,

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find that the performance you are seeing right now is related to being so short on RAM.

Go buy some more and it should work much better.

-Will

 

[louisk]

How are you using rsync? It can also quickly become a bottleneck if its for a remote connection. Using SSH encryption/decryption can easily consume an entire CPU with relatively low bandwidth.

 

[cosmicx]

@louisk

i use rync like so:

rsync -aPS --progress /souce /destination

my ntfs volume is connected via sata2 port of my freenas machine.

i think it's really a memory issue, really. gonna have to increase my ram the soonest possible.