Adding drives to existing FreeNAS volume

[RichTJ99]

Hi,

I have a FreeNAS box which is a backup only box. It has 5x 6tb WD Red drives in it. I just bought 3 more 6tb WD reds (still need to test it).

All this box does is receive Rsync transfers from my main FreeNAS box on a timed basis.

What is the best way to proceed?

Ideally I would like to destroy the 5 drive volume & make it an 8 drive volume. Then have the Rsync data just recreate everything over a few weeks.

Can that be done & still have the CIFS shares get automatically recreated? Or when I destroy the volume does that break everything?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[JohnDigital]

Not sure if the shares destroy when the volumes/datasets are destroyed. I suspect that yes they will be, if they aren't that's great too, but it all is for nothing if you do it the way I would do it. Its probably not the only way, but seems the most straightforward. If you are going to have everything named the same once its all done, I would make sure you have a config backup first, and second detach and destroy the pool and recreate it with the added drives. I know you said this is a backup server, but this will destroy everything, it should be noted.
Then just let your rsync or replication do its thing to the newly created pool for how ever long it takes, then once everything is the way it was-- (possibly) Restore that config file, and everything should be exactly the same, this only works if you keep everything named the same, and once the data is back it might just start working again..

 

[GBillR]

Not sure if the shares destroy when the volumes/datasets are destroyed. I suspect that yes they will be, if they aren't that's great too, but it all is for nothing if you do it the way I would do it.

So there are 2 "config" backups, and the OP should be sure which is being referred to...
The "Backup Configuration" located in the System >> Advanced section of the GUI (http://doc.freenas.org/9.10/system.html#id30)claims to be able to reproduce the "ZFS Pool and database layout". I have never used this backup, but I am curious myself as to whether or not it would reproduce the dataset structure including shares. It sounds as if it might.

The other is located in System >> General, and is what people typically consider a backup of the FreeNAS configuration. I am fairly certain that this only backs up the settings like users, groups, tasks, etc. The ZFS pool information and file structures are not backed up here. Do CIFS shares get reproduced? I do not believe so.

SO, I believe that if you save and restore BOTH backups (even without selecting to backup the underlying data), that you might be able to accomplish what you want...

I am curious to know myself.

 

[RichTJ99]

I am running the badblock test now so I have about 5 or so days until its done (based on last time). I will give it a shot once i copy all my config settings.

 

[RichTJ99]

So, no backup needed. I deleted the volume, recreated it with 8 drives, named it the same & everything worked fine!

 

[JohnDigital]

Nice job. Easy peasy.