Old FreeNAS Pool Not Fully Imported to TrueNAS Scale

TrueNAS General
1

Hello everyone - looking for some guidance please when importing an old FreeNAS pool into TrueNAS Scale 24.04. The old pool is called Server_2 and the Dataset is now shown as listed on the Scale system (see photo) but the pool itself is not available. Seems like Scale is recognising the pool, at least partly, but I did not perform a manual import as yet - whatever has happened thus far has been done by the system. A couple of weeks ago when I started this activity I had some physical connection challenges now fixed so it seems all the relevant disks are now recognised. Big question is do I still need to perform a pool import? If so I will need to do it manually as it is currently not visible as an option in the Storage dashboard import dropdown. But I am unsure as to the recommended commands and suffices if someone could guide me please?

During the early connection issues some of the old pool disks were labelled as belonging to Server_2 and some were labelled N/A. Now all are shown as N/A. I should also say I only need access for long enough to check the old data content and move it to a new machine. Then the old pool will be removed. Of course I could still re-add Server_2 pool to the old FreeNAS system except that is currently 2800km away.

Additionally in the Scale 24.04 system when I select the Server_2 dataset I am receiving a CallError error message shown partly here:

Weixin Image_20241029110651
Weixin Image_202410291106511920×1080 471 KB

Weixin Image_20241029110658
Weixin Image_202410291106581920×1440 166 KB

At the moment I am reluctant to go further without seeking guidance, but reading online this could possibly be a permissions issue? But still better to ask before experimenting. Ideally I would like to access the data without creating any additional errors through my lack of experience.

Hoping it is something basic someone can advise on please. Sadly my knowledge and experience is not quite up to this at the moment.

Thanks in advance for any help. Hoping its not too complicated.

2

So by way of an update last night I found some other useful information elsewhere online that suggested looking in System Settings/Advanced/Storage configuration which did show Server_2 listed in the dropdown, with the option to add the pool, so I set that in motion. Seems to be slow progress as the old pool is quite large but so far it has now identified all the relevant disks as Server_2. Fingers crossed this works.

3

So the import using the dropdown didn’t work sadly, so I spent a few more days searching the Internet for more clues and I found the answer for me in another forum: TrueNAS Scale Export/Import Pool Issues - Computer Hardware & Server Infrastructure Builds - Lawrence Systems Forums It seems that in cases like mine, where I am attempting to import the old FreeNAS pool, TrueNAS trips up if we don not define the correct mount point. So I followed the advice which was to first run an export instruction for the old pool: sudo zpool export Server_2 (since the discs were now all showing) then afterwards perform the import: sudo zpool import -R /mnt Server_2 and after a few minutes I was able to view the Server_2 pool using zpool list.

At this point that was enough for me as I could review the content using the Shell interface and delete or copy to the new pool as required. As I type, all the data has been moved or deleted so the old pool is currently empty awaiting deletion once I have checked all is well with the copied data. Note that this method does not survive reboots so has to be reimported each time if there is a restart. In my layman’s view it seems the import does not automatically possess all the right permissions for ongoing use and I had no need to check or edit those in this case. I was happy to just use the Shell commands.

Anyway all happy now and I hope this may prove useful/informative for others.