I did a quick google search and found the following instructions by Oracle. I've never encountered this before but myself so I can't say the likelihood it'll work out for you. If I get time today I may test it myself for fun, I've got a few drives I use to play around with stuff like this in my backup server.I was hoping there is a better way. I read something about "zpool import -D" to import destroyed pools. Has anyone experience from that?
It would be great if you could try it. :D I have an old configuration saved also. I am thinking that maybe I could use that also to get my share settings back.I did a quick google search and found the following instructions by Oracle. I've never encountered this before but myself so I can't say the likelihood it'll work out for you. If I get time today I may test it myself for fun, I've got a few drives I use to play around with stuff like this in my backup server.
my backup doesn't have all the latest files and it will take a while to copy
selected export for my volume and ticked all the boxes to destroy the dataset and configuration.
Yes, I am behind on my backups. I was planning to do it soon and also go through my files, since I don't think all of them will fit on my backup anymore. I do backups manually since I have the backup unit in the same room and don't want them both to be online at the same time for too long. I know it isn't ideal..Hi again Thinker,
Good for you that you have backups. At least you have things to recover. Many people do not have backups at all.
If these backups are not up to your expectation, it shows you that your backup plan, despite existing, is not properly satisfying your needs. Once you restored your data, you will have to improve that plan to whatever will satisfy you. Here, I am doing ZFS replication to a second NAS hundreds of KM away, every 15 minutes. These 15 minutes snapshots are kept for a few days and I have many generations, up to monthly snapshots that I save for 4 years. Thanks to that, I have very high precision for a recovery performed quickly after incident, down to good enough considering how long after the incident the recovery is performed.
What FreeNAS version are you running ? Did you do that in the old or new WebUI ?
Also, I am a little confused from your different posts. You said that what you destroyed is the volume and that now the drives are unused. But you also say that it is a dataset that you destroyed. So what exactly was destroyed ? The pool (then of course all the datasets in it suffered the same fate) or only datasets (so the pool itself should have survived) ?
I wouldn't beat myself up too much over it. @Heracles' approach is a great one if you can swing having a machine online and accessible somewhere else. I myself keep a backup machine always on and running in my house which receives snapshots via ZFS send/receive from the main server. I then rotate disks in the backup offsite regularly to protect against losing all of my data from fire or theft. Of course the "right" backup strategy depends on you, your budget, your data etc. As always folks on the forums would be happy to help offer advice about backup strategies. There are many posts around too where you can see what current users do.Yes, I am behind on my backups. I was planning to do it soon and also go through my files, since I don't think all of them will fit on my backup any more. I do backups manually since I have the backup unit in the same room and don't want them both to be online at the same time for too long. I know it isn't ideal..
Ah, I misunderstood above and thought you had destroyed your pool. From what I can tell from searching around it looks like you might be in a tight spot. Hopefully someone will chime in here and tell me I'm wrong and give you some concrete ideas.Yes, I destroyed the volume. Clicked export and ticked all the boxes. Then realized it was the wrong volume.
Yes, my 'tank' pool was destroyed. I think volume and pool is the same thing.I wouldn't beat myself up too much over it. @Heracles' approach is a great one if you can swing having a machine online and accessible somewhere else. I myself keep a backup machine always on and running in my house which receives snapshots via ZFS send/receive from the main server. I then rotate disks in the backup offsite regularly to protect against losing all of my data from fire or theft. Of course the "right" backup strategy depends on you, your budget, your data etc. As always folks on the forums would be happy to help offer advice about backup strategies. There are many posts around too where you can see what current users do.
Ah, I misunderstood above and thought you had destroyed your pool. From what I can tell from searching around it looks like you might be in a tight spot. Hopefully someone will chime in here and tell me I'm wrong and give you some concrete ideas.
If you were able to import it using the GUI that is a good sign. You can try to import your old config file now if you wish. Before you do that I suggest that you back up the current config just in case. Keep in mind that the config is not the worst thing to have to redo in most cases. If you don't like the config as-is you can always go through and reconfigure your shares etc.Now I just need to configure my shares again. I suppose I could just use an old config file, right?
dd
7 times over your drive and thus zpool import -D
worked. Happy you got your pool back! :)