Replacing the boot device

TrueNAS General
1

I just built my first TrueNAS home server and installed 25.04 on it. I used an Intel Optane 32gb nvme as the boot device. However, I am now thinking of adding another m2 ssd to mirror the app pool and need to empty out the m2 slot occupied by Optane. I will use a sata ssd as the boot device instead.

After searching these forums and reddit, I’ve learned of two approaches to achieve this.

The first is to just remove the optane and do a fresh install of TrueNAS on the SATA SSD. I can then restore my configuration with the password secret seed and be up and running.

The second approach is to add the sata ssd as a boot mirror and once the resilver is complete remove the optane. I can then disable the mirror.

Are there any gotchas/downsides to the second approach that I should be aware of? It seems like the easier route but I am unsure if there can be any complications related to UEFI boot device list. Which approach is the safer bet?

2

Why not a mix of the two? Do a config backup, then make a mirror of the boot drive?

I’ve hotswapped boot drives in a mirror without any issues & see no issues with this approach.

Maybe motherboard bios will need to be pointed to boot from the sata ssd is the only annoyance J can see.

But with properly backed config & passwords, you can clean install incase something goes critically wrong (good practice either way).

Clean install is good somethings, randomly fixes driver issues for me.