Replacing Hardware

[ktaylor]

I searched for this and none of the responses seemed to cover this. I need to replace all of my hardware except the drives and I want to keep my current setup and ZFS pools, etc. Is it possible to do this? The computer is 10 years old but the drives are fairly new.

I don't know the exact version of freenas but it was updated about 3 weeks ago so it should be close to current. Hardware was showing its age, GPU is failing and already killed 3 monitors (ouch). Also needs ECC RAM and a mobo that will boot via USB (had to install freenas from a CD).

Also, if possible I would like to move the system to a new drive. The current one is a traditional SSD and is about 5 years old. I have a new NVMe drive (Corsair MP600). Can I just use a drive copier before swapping the hardware?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Constantin]

If all the drives are good, it might be as simple as getting the new chassis set up, swapping all the drives into the new chassis, bringing up the BIOS to change the boot drive and then you're off to the races. FreeNAS identifies drives based on a UUID that is independent of the physical SATA port they're plugged in.

I would not use a disk copier. Instead, add a new drive to the boot pool (see System in the GUI) and then FreeNAS will mirror the old drive to the new one. Once that is complete, you can then "disconnect" the old drive via the GUI and only use the new drive (or have a mirrored boot pool, which is not a bad idea).

I'd stay away from exotica and stick closely to the suggested hardware in the resource pages. In general, just about anything that runs intel on Supermicro in recent memory will be compatible and won't feature potential headaches like Realtek or Aquantia ethernet interfaces, for example.

 

[ktaylor]

Thank you. That was the exact information I needed. Unfortunately with the supply chain issues I had to compromise up on the hardware, so I'm into the exotica but the old system was running on AMD stuff already. I guess I got lucky.

• ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero
• GTX 1650
• Ryzen 3900X
• No Aquantia but the network interfaces are:
  • Intel I211-AT
    Realtek RTL8125-CG 2.5G LAN

 

[ktaylor]

A few more questions though. I'm installing a new GPU since I couldn't get a G processor. Do I need to un-install the old GPU drivers? How to do that with TrueNAS?

I see in the hardware guide that SATA controllers are bad so does that mean that adding a PCIe SATA expansion card is not recommended? The mobo supports 8 SATA so I might be ok after moving from the SSD to NVMe and disconnecting the media drive.

 

[ChrisRJ]

I see in the hardware guide that SATA controllers are bad so does that mean that adding a PCIe SATA expansion card is not recommended?

Yes, if you really need the additional parts, stay away from SATA cards and buy a used LSI-based HBA flashed to IT mode (or do the flashing yourself). Check the HBA's temperature while running, they usually require a certain level of airflow. Also, check the "SAS and SATA" link in the recommend readings of my signature.

 

[Constantin]

Do I need to un-install the old GPU drivers? How to do that with TrueNAS?

Apologies, I know little about GPUs in the context of TrueNAS other than that traditionally, they did little more than driving the various BIOS screens. Some folk are transcoding video and all that fun but wider support for GPU-associated features likely is limited to TrueNAS scale not TrueNAS core (which is what I use). Too bad that your 39xx Ryzen processor doesn’t offer basic graphic support.

I don’t see why you’d have to uninstall drivers but I sure hope you don’t have to suffer through figuring out how to install new drivers into FreeBSD. That’s unlikely going to be fun.

The mobo supports 8 SATA so I might be ok after moving from the SSD to NVMe and disconnecting the media drive.

Use those ports and then add a LSI HBA flashed to IT and then have room to add 8-16 more drives.