I have added a 9211-8i HBA to my system and it works like a champ. I bought it mainly to get rid of the USB drives that I have existing. I ignored the “warnings” and ended up and got bit and lost some data by using USB. That said I want to move the drives off of USB to the HBA. The question I have is can i just move them and the pools sync up? If not how do I do it?
In theory you should be able to. Just plug them in and import the pool from the GUI.
I did something similar back when I started using TrueNAS.
Do I have to export the pool first?
I would recommend to export it first. That way you won’t have to import it back with the -f flag.
Be very careful. I believe that USB adapters can mask/change the serial number of the HDD. Taking it out of its USB housing/adapter and connecting it directly to an HBA could result in it’s presenting a different serial number to the OS, which could confuse ZFS.
I would imagine that exporting the pool first would be a minimum requirement. Try it with a pool with data you don’t mind losing first ![]()
That’s a good point. USB should (in theory) have the same serial number as when you use an HBA, but who knows…
In theory… but that really depends on the controller, so YMMV.
Well the USB enclosure definitely does NOT pass the serial number so the serial number will change. That may put a difficulty level on moving the drive.
Not really? You just have to replace the UNAVAIL (USB) drive with the old new (SATA) one and l’et the pool resilver. Easy enough.
Ok. Sorrry I think I left one thing about the pool. I haven’t said this is not in a raid it is a single drive pool on the USB drive. I thought the resilver process was for a replacement to a raid. What I want to do is simply move the drive from the USB enclosure to the HBA keeping the pool intact. I think if it was the same serial number on the USB as is on the drive a simple move might be right but it isn’t on the enclosure it has a totally different serial number.
There is no way you can move that from that USB enclosure to something else without massive pains and a lot of technical knowledge. If it’s a backup drive I’d just destroy the pool and recreate it.
Is your HDD an SMR drive?
Yes it is a USB hard drive converter/enclosure that I put a WD BLUE sata hard drive in. The drive slips in the enclosure.
Model number?
It is a WD10EZEX
Follow @victor 's advice: Just pull the drive out the USB enclosure and plug it as a regular SATA drive.
It’s CMR ![]()
We can’t definitely say.
BUT it should work. No you shouldn’t need to export. If you need to force import that’s not a problem.
It depends if the drives are surfaced to the OS whole, or if they’re wrapped somehow.
Ok Thanks Stux, I will give it a try.
Finally got around to moving it from USB to the HBA. Life got in the way and just now got around to it. It moved just fine. All I had to do was move the drive. Truenas detected it and reconnected it just fine. Woohoo I am now USB free…