My set-up: I’m using a SAS/SATA enclosure that has a mini SAS port (SFF-8643) with 4 SATA drives inside. I then have a reverse mini SAS to 4x SATA cable that connects the enclosure to the 4 SATA ports on my motherboard. Because the cable has a mini SAS connector on the enclosure side, I don’t know which drive connects to which SATA port on the mother board.
I would like to test something and therefore would like to connect each drive directly to the motherboard using a regular SATA cable (SATA to SATA).
Question: If I shut down TrueNAS and remove the drives from the enclosure and connect them directly to the motherboard, likely no longer connecting each drive to the same SATA port as in the original set-up. Will this be an issue? Am I at risk of loosing my pool?
as @farout already pointed out, TrueNAS (or ZFS) normally shouldn’t care how the drives are physically connected. AFAIK it “recognizes” the drives based on their UUIDs / unique identifiers.
(As long as the connection is reasonably transparent to the system…
Certain DIY setups (external enclosures with their own built-in port multiplier, or anything connected via USB) can become a challenge.)
But one more thing to add:
You need to be careful with the drive labels, because they can change after each system reboot. It’s not guaranteed that sda / sdb etc. (or under TrueNAS Core maybe ada1 / ada2 etc.) will always refer to the same physical drive.
You have to pay close attention, e.g. by using the serial numbers, so you don’t accidentally unplug the wrong drive (in case you want to replace a defective drive, for example).
