SOLVED Replacing a device without taking it offline first?

[Chicken76]

One of my drives in a RAID-Z array started showing unreadable (pending) sectors. I've ordered a new drive to replace it and now I'm reviewing the steps to be taken.

The guides I've found so far assume the device is failed and offline, but in my case it's very much online, with only 2 unreadable sectors, so my question is:

Is it possible to replace the problematic drive without taking it offline first? Would a generic ZFS command 'zpool replace' work in a ssh console and not screw up anything in FreeNAS?

I'm asking because taking it offline would leave the array without any redundancy, so if during resilvering I get an URE, I'm in trouble. The 'zpool replace' command only takes the device offline after the data has been migrated off the device to be replaced.

 

[danb35]

Is it possible to replace the problematic drive without taking it offline first?

Of course it is, if you have room in your server to temporarily install the extra drive. Install the new drive, go into the web GUI, select the failing drive, click Replace, select the new drive, click Replace Disk. No need to use the CLI for anything.

 

[Chicken76]

Thanks! I've done just that after I managed to find the 'Replace' button.
If you go to Storage -> View disks you can only Edit and Wipe. I had to go to View volumes -> click on my array -> Volume status to find the 'replace' button. (posted this for anyone needing to replace a drive and thinking they'll find that option under View disks)