Add one drive to a 4 drive existing pool

[exeter_acres]

I searched.. I really did.. didn't see anything that is super recent....
I do see there were requests...many requests.. but they were all at least a year old.....
I'm now to FreeNAS and built my first system using a Dell computer...
Running FreeNAS 11.3
all is working great... backups, data, plex, etc..

Built with 4, 4TB drives.....

I fear I know the answer but....

Can I add a 5th drive to this existing pool and expand to the new capacity without destroying the existing pool?

I do see there is an option to extend a pool... but not sure if that is the correct place...

so.. boiled down.. I have a 4 disk pool... can I make it a 5 disk pool without destroying the existing?
Thanks!

 

[Spearfoot]

I searched.. I really did.. didn't see anything that is super recent....
I do see there were requests...many requests.. but they were all at least a year old.....
I'm now to FreeNAS and built my first system using a Dell computer...
Running FreeNAS 11.3
all is working great... backups, data, plex, etc..

Built with 4, 4TB drives.....

I fear I know the answer but....

Can I add a 5th drive to this existing pool and expand to the new capacity without destroying the existing pool?

I do see there is an option to extend a pool... but not sure if that is the correct place...

so.. boiled down.. I have a 4 disk pool... can I make it a 5 disk pool without destroying the existing?
Thanks!

Your forebodings are correct: the answer to your question is 'No'.

Details: ZFS pools are made up of one or more vdevs ('virtual devices'). You can expand a pool by adding vdevs, but there is no way to expand a vdev -- which is what you want to do. So your only option for ending up with a 5-disk pool is to:

• Backup the data on your 4-disk pool
• Destroy the 4-disk pool
• Create a new pool with 5 disks (presumably as a RAIDZ2 array?)
• Restore data from backup

I know that's not the answer you were hoping for...

Good luck!

 

[exeter_acres]

Thanks.. appreciate the response... Yes using Z2
I did see threads with this question and a couple mentioned that it is feature that may be coming.....
but I guess if it was here.. I would have found it...

Thanks again!

 

[Chris Moore]

I did see threads with this question and a couple mentioned that it is feature that may be coming.....
but I guess if it was here.. I would have found it...

It is something that is still in development. If there were more folks with a solid background in system level coding that would work on it for free, it might be done by now.