Bought a new box

sabi-tech

Dabbler
Joined
Jan 19, 2012
Messages
45
Hi all, so after getting grilled for using consumer hardware in my freenas build, i have treated myself to an HP Microserver N40L.
I'm planning on running 4x 3tb WD RED drives in a RAIDZ array (one faliure) and running the OS on the internal USB Port.
I'm moving all the storage from my existing FreeNAS build.
I think i should be ok restoring the config from my existing box to the new install and then move the drives over? Are there any gotcha's i need to watch out for?
 
Joined
Jul 2, 2019
Messages
648
@sabi-tech - I'm not sure of your current FreeNAS implementation such as if you are using hardware RAID, etc. I haven't moved disks between servers (yet, anyway), so this is based upon other posts.

If you are not using hardware RAID, you should be able to install FreeNAS on the boot devices in new N40L. Once that is done, just move your disks over to the N40L and import them.

It also seems that you may be able to take your boot device (USB thumb drive or SSD) from the old server and move everything at once to the N40L. If you have an LSI HBA, I would move that over too and use that HBA for your drives if that is what you used in the old server.

EDIT: I believe that you can backup and restore your old FreeNAS configuration onto the new server if you are dong a fresh install. Not sure if that will work.

Other who have more experience will likely have better guidance.
 

Alecmascot

Guru
Joined
Mar 18, 2014
Messages
1,175
Hi all, so after getting grilled for using consumer hardware in my freenas build, i have treated myself to an HP Microserver N40L.
I'm planning on running 4x 3tb WD RED drives in a RAIDZ array (one faliure) and running the OS on the internal USB Port.
I'm moving all the storage from my existing FreeNAS build.
I think i should be ok restoring the config from my existing box to the new install and then move the drives over? Are there any gotcha's i need to watch out for?
I used an N40L for a number of years. It worked fine but the GUI became a little slow with later FN releases. Not sure what it will be like with the latest concoction...... I moved on to a Dell T110II.

With all the reports about failing thumb drives I would move to an SSD. I used a 64GB msata in an adapter like this :

I found them very reliable.
Also, there is a modified BIOS that lets you use the CD sata port at full speed if you want to add an extra drive sometime, or fit the boot SSD in there.

You should be able to swing the existing boot drive and data drives over in one go. Just make sure that raid is turned off in the bios.
 

sabi-tech

Dabbler
Joined
Jan 19, 2012
Messages
45
Thanks for the replies,
I managed to get everything moved over. It was easier than i had thought it would be. I put a fresh install on a USB stick, moved my storage drives over and restored the config file from my old nas. give it about 20 mins and then it was up and running. Only thing i had to do was change the staric reservation on my router to the new network card nic and boom! done.
 
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