After succeeding with whole drives and with partitioned drives, I’m ready to try with more complex partitions. This is a repeat of the failed attempt a few days ago.
Parition creation
The partitions are created
Create the schema:
root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart create -s gpt /dev/mfisyspd0 mfisyspd0 created root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart create -s gpt /dev/mfisyspd1 mfisyspd1 created root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart create -s gpt /dev/mfisyspd2 mfisyspd2 created root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart create -s gpt /dev/mfisyspd3 mfisyspd3 created
Boot:
root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart add -t freebsd-boot -s 512b /dev/mfisyspd0 mfisyspd0p1 added root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart add -t freebsd-boot -s 512b /dev/mfisyspd1 mfisyspd1p1 added root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart add -t freebsd-boot -s 512b /dev/mfisyspd2 mfisyspd2p1 added root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart add -t freebsd-boot -s 512b /dev/mfisyspd3 mfisyspd3p1 added
Swap:
root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart add -t freebsd-swap -s 8G /dev/mfisyspd0 mfisyspd0p2 added root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart add -t freebsd-swap -s 8G /dev/mfisyspd1 mfisyspd1p2 added root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart add -t freebsd-swap -s 8G /dev/mfisyspd2 mfisyspd2p2 added root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart add -t freebsd-swap -s 8G /dev/mfisyspd3 mfisyspd3p2 added
The partition to be used for a zpool:
root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart add -t freebsd-zfs /dev/mfisyspd0 mfisyspd0p3 added root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart add -t freebsd-zfs /dev/mfisyspd1 mfisyspd1p3 added root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart add -t freebsd-zfs /dev/mfisyspd2 mfisyspd2p3 added root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart add -t freebsd-zfs /dev/mfisyspd3 mfisyspd3p3 added
The results:
root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart show mfisyspd0 mfisyspd1 mfisyspd2 mfisyspd3
=> 40 468862048 mfisyspd0 GPT (224G)
40 1 1 freebsd-boot (512B)
41 16777216 2 freebsd-swap (8.0G)
16777257 452084831 3 freebsd-zfs (216G)
=> 40 468862048 mfisyspd1 GPT (224G)
40 1 1 freebsd-boot (512B)
41 16777216 2 freebsd-swap (8.0G)
16777257 452084831 3 freebsd-zfs (216G)
=> 40 62533216 mfisyspd2 GPT (30G)
40 1 1 freebsd-boot (512B)
41 16777216 2 freebsd-swap (8.0G)
16777257 45755999 3 freebsd-zfs (22G)
=> 40 62533216 mfisyspd3 GPT (30G)
40 1 1 freebsd-boot (512B)
41 16777216 2 freebsd-swap (8.0G)
16777257 45755999 3 freebsd-zfs (22G)
root@r730-04:/home/dvl #
The zpool creation
In these tests, the main difference between now and the previous test is the partition index being used (p1 v p3):
root@r730-04:/home/dvl # zpool create ztest mirror /dev/mfisyspd0p3 /dev/mfisyspd1p3 root@r730-04:/home/dvl # zpool list ztest NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE CKPOINT EXPANDSZ FRAG CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROOT ztest 214G 372K 214G - - 0% 0% 1.00x ONLINE - root@r730-04:/home/dvl # zpool status ztest pool: ztest state: ONLINE config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM ztest ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0 mfisyspd0p3 ONLINE 0 0 0 mfisyspd1p3 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors root@r730-04:/home/dvl #
Add in the second mirror
First, touch the file:
root@r730-04:/home/dvl # touch /ztest/things root@r730-04:/home/dvl # ls -l /ztest/things -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Nov 22 14:49 /ztest/things root@r730-04:/home/dvl #
Then add in the drives:
root@r730-04:/home/dvl # zpool add ztest mirror /dev/mfisyspd2p3 mfisyspd3p3 root@r730-04:/home/dvl # zpool status ztest pool: ztest state: ONLINE config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM ztest ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0 mfisyspd0p3 ONLINE 0 0 0 mfisyspd1p3 ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-1 ONLINE 0 0 0 mfisyspd2p3 ONLINE 0 0 0 mfisyspd3p3 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors root@r730-04:/home/dvl # ls -l /ztest/things -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Nov 22 14:49 /ztest/things root@r730-04:/home/dvl #
And next, remove:
root@r730-04:/home/dvl # zpool remove ztest mirror-0 root@r730-04:/home/dvl # zpool status ztest pool: ztest state: ONLINE remove: Removal of vdev 0 copied 492K in 0h0m, completed on Sat Nov 22 14:50:31 2025 336 memory used for removed device mappings config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM ztest ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-1 ONLINE 0 0 0 mfisyspd2p3 ONLINE 0 0 0 mfisyspd3p3 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors root@r730-04:/home/dvl # ls -l /ztest/things -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Nov 22 14:49 /ztest/things root@r730-04:/home/dvl # zpool list ztest NAME SIZE ALLOC FREE CKPOINT EXPANDSZ FRAG CAP DEDUP HEALTH ALTROOT ztest 21.5G 528K 21.5G - - 0% 0% 1.00x ONLINE - root@r730-04:/home/dvl #
Success. I still don’t know why my first test failed.
