Upgrade to TrueNase and Transfer from 3ware to HBA

[DarkSideMilk]

Hi friends.

So firstly, here are the specs of our server
Motherboard: Supermicro PDSM4+
RAM: 8GB
CPU: Intel Xeon X3220 (4 cores)
Freenas OS Drive: Samsung Sata SSD 860 PRO 256 GB
Storage Controller: 3ware 12 Drive sata raid controller (9650SE SATA-II RAID PCIe - each drive configured as single disk/JBOD)
Storage Config: 3x4 (3 pools with 4 drives per pool) RaidZ2. 12 2 TB Drives ~10TB in the pool (each drive partitioned as 1.5 TB because they were all originally 1.5 TB and slowly replaced over a couple years as the old drives died)
Network: 2 x Intel 82573E Gigabit Ethernet. Only 1 currently configured.
FreeNas Version: FreeNAS-11.3-U5

When freenas first moved to TrueNas I gave upgrading a go and couldn't boot. I figured it was probably a hardware compatibility issue since we're using a very old server. I would love to upgrade but the sata shelf is heavily integrated into the server, I can't easily just connect them to another server as far as I can tell. So I want to get as much life out of this as I can.

I am also very aware that the 3ware cards are not recommended, it's what we had at the time and we made it work. Had I known what I know now, I would have switched the controller before ever making a pool, but I didn't know that, so here I am. We have ordered replacement HBA controllers (2 x LSI 9211-8i P20 IT Mode for ZFS FreeNAS unRAID Dell H310 6Gbps SAS HBA). I have read through many old forum posts and documentation and I'm not finding completely clear answers on a few things so I'm hoping I can get some clarifications.

So onto the questions.

1. If I switch out the controllers and boot up FreeNas, and I am unlucky and it doesn't see the disks, is the data destroyed at that point? Or could I just go back to my 3ware card and then start backing stuff up elsewhere? Basically, I am unclear as to when the risk of data loss exists in the migration process, and want to know what can be tested with minimal risk.
(I realize the best thing to do would be to first back up the data, but we would have to create a new storage solution to temporarily store 7TB of data only to move it back.)

2. If I am obscenely lucky and the "single disk" mode is true jbod (I've found some varying stories), do I need to do some sort of export of the pool before switching the controllers, or do I just swap it and the disks will be detected? I'm assuming there's a step here I'm missing.

3. If I am unlucky and need to re-create everything. Is there any way to backup and import the pool and share configurations into a new pool so I don't have to manually recreate all the datasets and file permissions?

4. If I make that migration to hba controllers, will I then be able to upgrade to the TrueNas releases? Or might I have other hardware that is too old to support TrueNas? All the hardware compatibility articles I can find pretty much say any cpu/chipset is supported as its meant to be opened, and then there are recommended controller configurations. So if I do all this, will my end goal of upgrading to the latest and future versions of TrueNas be achieved?

Thank you all in advance for the help
-JJ

 

[sretalla]

If I switch out the controllers and boot up FreeNas, and I am unlucky and it doesn't see the disks, is the data destroyed at that point?

No, you could put the old controller back and data will be there.

If I am obscenely lucky and the "single disk" mode is true jbod (I've found some varying stories), do I need to do some sort of export of the pool before switching the controllers, or do I just swap it and the disks will be detected?

Correct. Just swap it.

If I am unlucky and need to re-create everything. Is there any way to backup and import the pool and share configurations into a new pool so I don't have to manually recreate all the datasets and file permissions?

You can use zfs send | zfs recv (or do it with a replication task from the GUI) to make an identical copy of the pool to a backup target which is attached directly or on another server.

Provided when you restore the data back, you do so to a pool with the same name, everything will come back as normal.

If I make that migration to hba controllers, will I then be able to upgrade to the TrueNas releases? Or might I have other hardware that is too old to support TrueNas?

You're using a system that supports only DDR2 RAM... that's very old. I'd be surprised if everything works fine, but you're welcome to try it.

All the hardware compatibility articles I can find pretty much say any cpu/chipset is supported as its meant to be opened, and then there are recommended controller configurations. So if I do all this, will my end goal of upgrading to the latest and future versions of TrueNas be achieved?

The first thing that I would have expected to stop you is the FreeBSD bootloader (since 11.2, I think), but it seems you're already past that...
You have hardware from the right vendors for things to work, so maybe you'll be lucky.

You might find that for the power savings and the relatively low cost of second hand gear that supports DDR3 or even DDR4 RAM, you might be better to just replace it.

 

[DarkSideMilk]

Thank you very much for the clarifications!
We're going to look into upgrading the hardware, but good to know that if we can't get that approved right away we can make this keep working.