Backing up the entire FreeNas OS to be able to restore without re-install

[bgillette]

Hi i'm very new to FreeNAS. I am using Freenas v11.3-U2.1 on a Dell Optiplex 980 as a home NAS to act as a backup for my large QNAP NAS. Anyone know how i would go about doing a full backup of the OS (not the data i'm backing up to freenas, but the OS level data) that i could keep to boot from and restore my system incase my install gets corrupted?
I have been looking for what utilities to use and the steps to use them to create an exact replica of my FreeNas system incase i need to restore to new hardware.
I have the "data" backed up already by other means, but i would like to know if there is a way to create an image of the current system that could be restored in the event of a disaster.
Disk space is not a concern, i have terabytes of disk space.
I live in an areas where we have fairly frequent violent lightning storms and our electricity goes out. I do have UPS power backups. but want to make sure if something bad happens i can restore to new hardware very quickly without having to re-install FreeNAS again (the install was painnnnnnfulll for me).
In windows this is very, very easy. In Linux Ubuntu this is very, very easy. seems to be very limited info on how to do this for FreeNAS.

 

[Redcoat]

Welcome to the forums.

This is actually very easy in FreeNAS. On the System, General page you'll find a button "Save Config". Hit that and save where you will. In the case of an OS restore, install FreeNAS as your initial install process, go to the System, General page and hit the "Upload Config" button, browse to your saved version and select it. Job done!

Section 2.5 in the docs will expand on this and related topics for you.

 

[bgillette]

Welcome to the forums.

This is actually very easy in FreeNAS. On the System, General page you'll find a button "Save Config". Hit that and save where you will. In the case of an OS restore, install FreeNAS as your initial install process, go to the System, General page and hit the "Upload Config" button, browse to your saved version and select it. Job done!

Section 2.5 in the docs will expand on this and related topics for you.

Thanks!
I have done that already.. Backing up the configurations. I was curious to know if there is a way to backup the entire install so that in the event that i do need to restore, i don't have to "install" anything, just restore it to a blank disk.

 

[bgillette]

Thanks!
I have done that already.. Backing up the configurations. I was curious to know if there is a way to backup the entire install so that in the event that i do need to restore, i don't have to "install" anything, just restore it to a blank disk.

I guess what i am referring to is sometimes called a "bare metal" backup (and bare metal restore in the event that i have to restore).

 

[Redcoat]

I think that what you want to do is mirror the boot pool - see Section 7.3.1 in the docs.

 

[sretalla]

I guess what i am referring to is sometimes called a "bare metal" backup (and bare metal restore in the event that i have to restore).

You can do that... but it makes little sense.

Installing FreeNAS to a new boot device is trivial and takes a few minutes. Restoring a config file takes a few minutes.

Compare that to taking an entire disk image of your boot media (just to get the unique parts which are essentially the config) on a regular basis to ensure it's updated, storing that somewhere and then waiting for it to copy over to your "bare-metal" in (at best) the same amount of time it would take to do a fresh install and restore a config file.

You're over-complicating it if you try to think of an appliance OS (FreeNAS) the same way you treat a full OS (Windows, Linux, etc.).