Read data from disk used by zfs pool

[robbyls]

I have previously set up a FreeNAS server at home, using two disks mirrored by zfs pool. Recently one disk started to have problems and before I try to make any fix, I would like to copy the files to a Linux machine.

I am new to ZFS and I am kind of scared because it seems no easy way to read the files from the disk directly. What if I lost one of the disks, my data will be gone forever?

Can anyone advise me how to get my data back? Assuming now I only have one of the disks originally forming a zfs pool.

 

[gpsguy]

Since you have 2 disks in a mirror, you should be able to copy the data off the system disk, with the system up. Just use whatever protocol you currently use.

To replace the drive - please follow the instructions in the manual. Since you don't mention what version of FreeNAS you are using, here's a link to the documenation: http://doc.freenas.org/

 

[Apollo]

I have previously set up a FreeNAS server at home, using two disks mirrored by zfs pool. Recently one disk started to have problems and before I try to make any fix, I would like to copy the files to a Linux machine.

I am new to ZFS and I am kind of scared because it seems no easy way to read the files from the disk directly. What if I lost one of the disks, my data will be gone forever?

Can anyone advise me how to get my data back? Assuming now I only have one of the disks originally forming a zfs pool.

You loose your ZFS pool and you will not be able to recover any of its content.

Which version of Freenas are you using? If you are running 9.3 then the new hot spare replacement will take care of that for you. You need to add a disk of same or larger capacity than the one used on your pool and set it as a spare to the current mirrored pool. Resilver will occur .
If you want to make an image copy without replacing the drive, then replication locally or remotely over the network is the way to go.
Either way you need a spare disk.
For local replication, you need to connect the spare drive on your Freenas machine and create a ZFS volume there.
If you want to replicate remotely over the network, you can temporarily set your linux machine has a Freenas serveur and mount the spare drive there.
All in all, what you want is replicate your data from ZFS format to another pool as another ZFS format.

 

[robbyls]

I am using FreeNAS 9.3. I know that I can do disk replacement under FreeNAS but I would like to know if there is any way to read out the data without bothering ZFS pool stuff.

I probably will to go using ext4 with sync setup or using software mirror in Linux. I don't really need ZFS snapshot feature and the bottom line is, I always can read data out from a disk on another system/computer with that setup. Right now, I am scratching my head to figure out a way to retrieve my data.

 

[SweetAndLow]

How did you put the data on there in the first place? Use that same method to get your data off.

 

[Ericloewe]

What's wrong with loading FreeNAS on a different computer and reading the data there?

 

[robbyls]

What's wrong with loading FreeNAS on a different computer and reading the data there?

Thanks. that is exactly what I am trying now...