replace working disk with USB drive

[mka]

Hi,

I've six drives in a RaidZ2 setup (ada0...ada5) and want to replace ada3 with a larger one "to grow a ZFS Pool" and have read the docs on this part. But it only handles with removing a drive and resilvering—aka temp. losing some redundancy.

I was thinking about connecting the new and larger driver via USB3.0 to the FreeNAS server. Then in the GUI open "volume status" on the zpool, select ada3p1 from the list and hit replace and select the USB drive (for example /dev/da1). After resilvering power down the server, remove the old ada3 from the drive port of the chassis, install the new drive from the USB Station into the drive port of the old drive and let it become the new /dev/ada3.

Since FreeNAS is using the /dev/gptid... it should detect the correct drive and the pool be "online"? Is that a valid way to replace a currently working drive? Without removing it in advance?

I tested it on a simple VM installation I use to play around with and it seemed to work.

Thanks :)

 

[mka]

for the record: it doesn't work.

 

[cyberjock]

Sorry I didn't reply. I could have sworn I had. But on the flip side, I don't see why it didn't work. Can you elaborate on what exactly happened?

 

[mka]

the replace did work, the pool did grow and was online. But after reboot and the installation from USB port to SATA port (and the device change from da1 to ada3) it couldn't find the drive and it was considered "UNAVAILABLE".

I again used the GUI and replaced the missing, unavailable drive with the one it should have been and in fact already is. The resilvering is working ATM... just 7h to go.