Moving and changing pools

[CrankyOldDude]

Hi folks!

Long time lurker, big fan of TrueNAS (I'm on SCALE).

My existing whitebox PC died (motherboard). I've got an actual server which I'd like to move my TrueNAS instance to. The biggest catch is that my old whitebox PC has a large number (8) of small drives making its two data pools, where the new server has a smaller number of large drives.

First: My understanding is that if I take the OS drive (SSD) out of the whitebox PC and put it in the new server, there's a high chance that TrueNAS will sort of "just work" and adapt to the new hardware. Is that a reasonable assumption?

Next: Since there is no way to connect both the old data drives and the new drives to any PC, my thought is that I'll need to back them up to an external drive, then restore them to the new server after those pools have been created.

My game plan, therefore, is the following:

1) Move the TrueNAS OS disk to another PC I have, and connect all the drives that were on the dead hardware to that PC, make sure everything re-mounts, etc.
2) Connect an external drive to that PC. Create a new pool on that external drive.
3) Synchronize the pool with the external drive (it's empty and can just manage to hold all the data).
4) Move the TrueNAS OS disk to the new server, create the new volume on the larger drives.
5) Synchronize the new volume on the server with the external drive. Dis-mount the external drive.

Is that a sane way to approach it?

 

[artlessknave]

OS drive (SSD) out of the whitebox PC and put it in the new server, there's a high chance that TrueNAS will sort of "just work" and adapt to the new hardware.

there is nothing to adapt. truenas includes all the drivers it will ever include. it will use whatever hardware it detects on bootup.

Move the TrueNAS OS disk to another PC I have,

if you have 2 systems (assuming the "other PC" is supported well enough by truenas to work), just set up truenas on both and replicate the old pool to the new pool. no need to duck around with external drives.