Upgrading disks

What should I do? 🤷‍♂️

  • Fresh install 🥗

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Clone disk 💾

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • ZFS something 🔁

    Votes: 1 100.0%
  • Total voters
    1
  • Poll closed .
freezr

freezr

Hello, BSD friends 👋

perhaps this week I may have time to upgrade my near-to-death disk but I am uncertain about how to proceed. 🤔

I am more prone to a fresh install also because can I modify the disks layout, although cloning the disk looks the simpler solution for me, I know I could use the magic of ZFS but besides the "boot environments" I have never used any of its features and I am worried to do something wrong... 😟

Thanks! 🙏
 
I have two samsung ssd 250GB, one is way more older than the other, and I have another identical one to use as replacement; these two disks are mounted as ZFS striped mode.

Perhaps I can't change the layout... 🤔

Code: 
zpool list                                                                                                                                                                                                     21:11
NAME    SIZE  ALLOC   FREE  CKPOINT  EXPANDSZ   FRAG    CAP  DEDUP    HEALTH  ALTROOT
zroot   454G   235G   219G        -         -    10%    51%  1.00x    ONLINE  -
 
What sort of SSDs are these? i.e. form factor (2.5" or M.2) and interface (SATA ?, or nVME)?

Do you need more disk capacity?

How many free "disk" slots do you have (physical mounting space and controller ports)?

Note that 2.5" SATA SSDs can generally be attached with velcro if you have a sensible place to put them.

Would you value a redundant layout (e.g mirror)? Given the low cost of SSDs, I think it's very sensible.

Assuming you can install two extra "disks", I'd suggest:
  • get a new SSD of at least 500GB capacity and mirror it to your existing stripe; and
  • get a second new SSD of the same capacity, and add a third mirror.
If you need more capacity, just get larger new SSDs.

You could then retire your existing disks (extra capacity allocated to a ZFS mirror would automatically be used by this point).
 
gpw928

Thank you very much for your interest.

I have two slots available both are sata but one is M.2 and the other is SATA.

I don't need to increase the space, I'd like to replace the M.2 which is almost ten year old, I have already the replacement, I though I could DD the old M.2 on the new M.2, and just replace it and continue to use the striped layout.
 
freezr said:
I though I could DD the old M.2 on the new M.2, and just replace it and continue to use the striped layout.
Click to expand...
Your two M.2 SSDs may not be exactly the same size. What's your recovery plan if the dd method fails for any reason?

Please consider the price of a new 500GB SSD which you could mirror to your stripe. If you can afford the cost, it's by far the safest approach.
 
I realized that I have 100GB of data to verify.

Perhaps if I check, and clean out that data I might use the mirror...

Actually I have a third disk where it is installed Devuan as backup OS, I may use also another ZFS layout...

I am not pretty sure since the third disk is a cheap SSD Kingstone...

I think I should wipe-out everything and do a better setup... 🤔
 
freezr said:
I have two slots available
Click to expand...
Perhaps we are talking at cross purposes. I'm sensing that perhaps you mean two slots in total, and both in use.

If that's the case, you don't have any easy options, and it would, indeed, be a good time to re-assess your layout, and your backup strategy.
 
Fresh install - every time. If you need the data on the old (nearly broken disk) make an image of it before the fresh install, or use a usb-to-sata or usb-to-M.2 adapter to transfer the data off the old disk.
 
I am almost ready...

I am still debating my dilemma about UFS vs ZFS, I used to have the latter but besides the boot environments I did not used any other special features, perhaps I could safe some space using UFS.

I read that from version 8, FreeBSD can read Linux signature swap without causing problem to Linux: https://www.linuxquestions.org/ques...reebsd-swap-partition-4175467537/#post4998014

This would be another strategy to safe a little bit of space on my mirror, I am saying that because I would install also a Linux distro as backup, when a software on FreeBSD isn't working and you have to wait till the quarterly is released. Nope I won't switch to the latest since once it broke my GPU driver.

The dilemmas... 😩
 
Looks like the installer does not offers UFS Mirror... I will go forward with ZFS then. 🤔
 
The installation went very bad... Errors in /boot/efi errors in ZFS... 😖

I'll perform another installation... 🤦‍♂️
 
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