Upgrading FreeNAS USB boot device to larger capacity

[Steve Lumponalog]

After upgrading to FreeNAS 9.3, I decided to swap out the 4GB USB stick that I was using as a boot device. The new USB drive is 16GB.

I used the dd command to copy an image of the old 4GB USB device to the 16 GB device, but of course, I wrote a 4GB image to a 16GB device. Do I need to grow that partition, or will ZFS automatically grow the partition? I have searched these forums and the FreeNAS handbook, but have been unable to find out how to grow a USB ZFS partition, or whether it's even needed. There doesn't seem to be much information on upgrading USB boot devices at all.

Does anyone know what's needed when upgrading to a larger USB boot device? Thanks!

 

[dlavigne]

Personally, I'd just install the latest STABLE to the new device, assuming that I was tracking STABLE and already had a copy of my config saved...

 

[Steve Lumponalog]

Thanks dlavigne,

It looks like there's a bit of documentation about the procedure upgrade section of the FreeNAS documentation -- I just didn't see it because I was looking for a way to grow the file system, not replace it entirely.

FreeNAS 9.3 user documentation: 2.5.3. Upgrading Using the ISO

Thanks again.

 

[STRAMIGIOLIS]

After upgrading to FreeNAS 9.3, I decided to swap out the 4GB USB stick that I was using as a boot device. The new USB drive is 16GB.

I used the dd command to copy an image of the old 4GB USB device to the 16 GB device, but of course, I wrote a 4GB image to a 16GB device. Do I need to grow that partition, or will ZFS automatically grow the partition? I have searched these forums and the FreeNAS handbook, but have been unable to find out how to grow a USB ZFS partition, or whether it's even needed. There doesn't seem to be much information on upgrading USB boot devices at all.

Does anyone know what's needed when upgrading to a larger USB boot device? Thanks!

I am having exactly the same problem and there must be a way to easily upgrade the size. I can of course start from scratch, save config and put it back, but there must be a way to copy to a bigger one easily. Have you found a solution in the meantime?

 

[danb35]

I can of course start from scratch, save config and put it back

That is the way to easily migrate to a larger boot device. If you want to minimize downtime, you can always do the installation on a different machine than your server.

 

[Sakuru]

You might be able to set up the new drive as a mirror of the old drive, then remove the old drive.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

You can do a standard disk replacement on the boot device:

1. Install new device.
2. System | Boot | Status
3. Select current device.
4. Click Replace.
5. Select new device.
6. etc.

 

[joeschmuck]

I am having exactly the same problem and there must be a way to easily upgrade the size. I can of course start from scratch, save config and put it back, but there must be a way to copy to a bigger one easily. Have you found a solution in the meantime?

Lets be real, this is not a problem, it's just not convenient. If you think it's a problem then I'd recommend you submit a bug report (sorry iXsystems). I don't mean to be the Grinch, it's just the truth.

 

[Steve Lumponalog]

Lets be real, this is not a problem, it's just not convenient. If you think it's a problem then I'd recommend you submit a bug report (sorry iXsystems). I don't mean to be the Grinch, it's just the truth.

Yep. What joeschmuck said. In the end, I just made a mirrored boot drive out of two 16 GB USB drives plugged directly into the motherboard. It was pretty painless once I found out what to do, and the whole process took less than an hour.