Were you able to change your boot drive?
A short section(s) in the user manual on recovering from a failed boot drive / recreating a boot drive / moving your disks to a new machine would be VERY helpful. (Similar to what I have written below). These procedures are so second nature to the experienced people who write the docs that they don't appreciate the little tweaks that would make life so much easier (and reduce the amount of traffic on the forums) for people who don't have a lot of experience.
I've only had to do a fresh install about 3 times since 2012, Initial install, one failed USB boot, and then upgrade to SSD.
I'm going from old memory, so can you please confirm that I have give good advice. Thanks
Good morning all,
I have read the online manual but i am still a little confused...
I would like to change my boot drive from a 256 USB SSD to a 16gb USB Stick. From what i understand i need to plug in a stick, backup the config file from within the GUI,
Boot using fresh install and then re-load the config file. Do i then need to re-add the pools etc?
If you are going to a smaller boot media, I believe you would have to do a fresh install. (
Can someone confirm this?) Last install I did was September 2019-Went from a USB to an SSD. As I recall it was quite easy.
The procedure would be to
- FIRST save the config to your PC
- Export your pools - may not be necessary, but couldn't hurt (Can someone confirm this?)
- Power down amd detach the SSD
- Plug in the USB stick
- Power Up and Iinstall FreeNAS
- Restore the config saved in step 1
- Reboot
- Import the pools if they aren't imported automatically by the restored config.
You should be right back where you started but with a USB stick for a boot device.
I assume the SSD is going in your new machine?