How to copy boot flash drive

[balanga]

I'm looking for instructions about how to replace a working flash disk... ie copying an existing setup to a new USB stick. My FreeNAS box does have an extra USB port so that I could copy it directly, but I'm not sure whether I can do this through the GUI...

 

[DifferentStrokes]

The direction you go here all depends on what you are trying to do. What is the copy for? Are you going to mirror your boot drive? Make a backup copy? Do you really just need the config file for FreeNAS? Or something else, perhaps?

 

[balanga]

I just want to replace my existing USB stick with a different one.

 

[dlavigne]

Typically you just copy the config using System -> General -> Save Config. If the stick dies, install the same SU onto it (http://download.freenas.org/9.3/STABLE/) and restore the config.

 

[balanga]

Can't I just do something like

dd if=/dev/da0 of=/devda1

Apologies if that is a dumb question...

 

[gpsguy]

It's not a dumb question, but the reality is that for FreeNAS, it's doesn't work reliably.

Please follow dlavigne's sage advice, it's the recommended way.

If you want additional fault tolerance, consider using 2 flash drives and mirroring them. FreeNAS 9.3 supports this configuration.

 

[Nick2253]

If all you want to do is replace your thumbdrive with another one, do as dlavigne says.

However, make sure you are installing the same version of FreeNAS. If you've got 9.2.x or older, I'd recommend upgrading first to the most recent 9.3 on your old stick, and then save the config. Then you can install 9.3 on the new stick, and load the config. In fact, I just did those exact steps to upgrade from an 4GB drive to a 16GB drive.