New Build - How to migrate storage from 2 volumes to 1

[SFAJeff]

I have been searching and have found many posts explaining how to actually migrate my data from the old machine to the new (For instance This Post) but I have not been able to find anything regarding the ramifications of combining two volumes into one.

My current machine has two raid z1 volumes of four drives each (tank and tank2). In my new build I am going with a single volume of eight drives in raid z2 (tank). I have no idea what will happen when I import my config from the old computer into the new (Or if I should). Will everything currently in tank work and nothing currently in tank 2? Can anyone shed light on this or am I overthinking? Thanks all!

 

[Chris Moore]

Please give more information about what hardware you are using and what you plan to use it for.

There are a lot of options for moving the data from two pools to one pool but you will need to have all the drives online when you copy the data over and you will not want to use the same name again. "tank" is the example name given in much of the documentation, but you could call your storage pool anything. The main reason for a new name is to prevent confusion when you are transferring the data.

If you are building a whole new system, you would probably want a whole new config instead of copying the old one over.

 

[SFAJeff]

Thanks for the reply. Probably more info than you need but here goes, the machines are strictly for home storage so there is nothing mission critical going on.

Old Hardware: Random HP Motherboard, Core 2 Quad 6600, 16G Ram, tank = Four 4TB drives in raid z1, tank 2 = four 2TB drives in raid z1. All the important stuff is in tank (Jails, Pictures, Home Movies, etc.) and tank2 is just Movies and Time Machine backups so it would not take long to re-map those shares on the new computer.

The new build is a Supermicro X11SSM-F-O motherboard, Xeon E3-1235, 32G ecc RAM, Eight 8TB drives in raid z2 and a 240gig ssd for VM's (Just a Windows 10 VM I only use when I need to do something that only runs on Windows). This is in a UNAS 810a case.

I currently have the drives from the old computer in the new computer and have imported the config, it is up an running with no issues. The 8TB drives are currently in the old computer burning in.

What I want to do is move the old drives back to the old computer and use it as a backup to the new one. Really though my question was in regards to combining the two volumes into one. If all I had to do was re-map the shares for Movies and Time Machine that would be ideal.

 

[SFAJeff]

Oh, one last piece of information. I have a 4 bay ESATA enclosure that I had planned on connecting to the new computer to transfer the data from each of the old volumes. I know we don't like ESATA but it is strictly to speed up the transfer process so it is not computer to computer over the network.

 

[danb35]

I know we don't like ESATA

eSATA isn't so much the issue (though it often seems to be flaky), but the SATA port multiplier that's used in that enclosure is bad news. Probably OK for temporary, short-term use, but not something you'd want to use permanently.

 

[Chris Moore]

I have used a eSATA port multiplyer with my FreeNAS. There are some tips you might need. I can add more to this once I get to my office.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[Ericloewe]

you could call your storage pool anything.

There are some restrictions. Additionally, don't name them anything that doesn't stick out, like RAIDZ2 - it's technically valid, because only raidz (lowercase) is forbidden, but you're just setting up future confusion.