SOLVED Old server died, Please help in freenas migration to new hardware

[rahulkumar98]

Hi All,

I had free nas server with following specs, which died (not booting). There are 8 drives connected.

• 1 OS Drive
• 1 Logs Drive
• 6 Data Drives (3 raid 1 pairs) - all of them in one ZFS Pool

Old Server

3U Supermicro 16Bay
Server X7DBE
Xeon QC L5320 1.86ghz
16GB RAM
2 * 3Ware 8-Port Raid Controller Card 9550SX-8LP SATA PCI-X
​

New server

Supermicro 3U SAS SATA 16 Bay Storage Server
16 GB RAM
Intel Xeon Quad Core 2.5GHZ Processor
Adaptec ASR-51645 16-Port SAS/SATA PCI-e x8 RAID​

Questions:

1. How can I migrate data from old drives to new server, without loosing them?
2. What should be the best procedure I should follow.

I am a newbie user for FreeNas and really need help in migration. I have very important data on the drives, which I do not have backup.

Thanks,
Rahul.



____________________________________________________________
References:


Old Server : Checking status of 3ware RAID controllers:

Controller c0:

Unit UnitType Status %RCmpl %V/I/M Stripe Size(GB) Cache AVrfy
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
u0 SINGLE OK - - - 465.651 ON OFF
u1 SINGLE OK - - - 1862.63 ON OFF
u2 SINGLE OK - - - 1862.63 ON OFF
u3 SINGLE OK - - - 1862.63 ON OFF
u4 SINGLE OK - - - 1396.97 ON OFF
u5 SINGLE OK - - - 1396.97 ON OFF
u6 SINGLE OK - - - 1862.63 ON OFF

Port Status Unit Size Blocks Serial
---------------------------------------------------------------
p0 OK u1 1.82 TB 3907029168 WD-WMC300038048
p1 OK u3 1.82 TB 3907029168 WD-WCC4M1636268
p2 NOT-PRESENT - - - -
p3 OK u0 465.76 GB 976773168 WD-WXB1A41M5183
p4 OK u2 1.82 TB 3907029168 WD-WCC4M1657756
p5 OK u6 1.82 TB 3907029168 34S0URNGS
p6 OK u5 1.36 TB 2930277168 S1XWJ90Z203393
p7 OK u4 1.36 TB 2930277168 S1XWJDWZ707135


Controller c1:

Unit UnitType Status %RCmpl %V/I/M Stripe Size(GB) Cache AVrfy
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
u0 SINGLE OK - - - 465.651 ON OFF

Port Status Unit Size Blocks Serial
---------------------------------------------------------------
p0 OK u0 465.76 GB 976773168 S0MUJ13P213505
p1 NOT-PRESENT - - - -
p2 NOT-PRESENT - - - -
p3 NOT-PRESENT - - - -
p4 NOT-PRESENT - - - -
p5 NOT-PRESENT - - - -
p6 NOT-PRESENT - - - -
p7 NOT-PRESENT - - - -

Alarms (most recent first):
+++ /var/log/3ware_raid_alarms.today 2014-07-10 03:01:15.933032304 -0400
@@ -1,8 +1,6 @@

​

 

[danb35]

You've got a problem there, in that you're using hardware RAID controllers (and even more so, in that you're using different controllers in the old and new servers). FreeNAS and ZFS don't like those, and they can be very hazardous to your data. They also tend to do "special" things to the disks attached to them, making it impossible to use those disks without their being connected to that controller.

The simplest answer would be to toss the Adaptec controller, move the 3Ware controllers into the new server, connect the drives to the 3Ware controllers, do a clean install of FreeNAS to your boot device if necessary (and upload your saved config file), and go on your way. This should work without immediate problems, but it keeps your hardware RAID controllers in the mix, which is a Bad Thing (tm).

The better answer would be to dispense with the Adaptec, do a clean install of FreeNAS onto a fresh 16-GB USB stick in the new machine, then plug your drives into the motherboard (or an LSI SAS HBA, if your motherboard doesn't have enough ports) and see if FreeNAS sees your pool. If so, thank $DEITY, upload your saved config file, and you're good to go. If not, plug in your old controllers, back up all your data, destroy the pool, remove the controllers, connect the drives to your motherboard (or an LSI SAS HBA, if your motherboard doesn't have enough ports), build a new pool, and restore your data from the backup.

 

[rahulkumar98]

Hi danb35,
thank you very much for your advice. Let me try these methods and i will get post results.

 

[rahulkumar98]

Hi danb35,
I was able to solve the problem by replacing the motherboard of old server with new one. Keeping all my controllers and drives intact. My motherboard was faulty. Thanks again for your help.
Rahul

 

[GrumpyBear]

And hopefully you are starting the backup now

 

[cyberjock]

LOL... and he kept the controller. Some people never learn, even when others have lost everything doing the exact same thing.

 

[JR Gonzalez]

Yeah, you really might want to rewind and go back and find a way to migrate away from that hardware raid. If anything, just for the experience you just had. zfs is really not designed to run on a hardware raid even though it is possible with awkward configurations. It wants direct access to disks to function properly. You should probably backup all the data on that pool... and find a way to configure the pool properly.

 

[rahulkumar98]

Hi all,
Thanks for the guidance. I am taking backup all the data which is around 4 TB. Once that is done, I plan to rebuild the server with LSI SAS HBA, which was recommended by danb35. Do you have any other recommendation about HBA cards, I have 16 bay case and plan to use all of them.
Thanks,

 

[danb35]

The go-to HBA around here is the IBM M1015 (which is a rebadged LSI unit), flashed to IT mode, version P16 firmware. They're relatively inexpensive (around $100 on eBay or less), and depending on your server's backplane, you may only need one of them. Worst case, you might need two. What model SuperMicro server is the new one (or better yet, exactly what model is the chassis)?

 

[marbus90]

demand && price for M1015 goes up, so maybe look for a Dell H200 or LSI 9207-8i or 9211-8i.