I’m writing this up to have a starting point for when I come back to arrange the free space into zpools.
This post might be the end-result of a request for donations for disk space etc that went out on 2025-08-29 – I was running short of space. Since then, donations (both cash and hardware) have helped me figure out that problem.
After moving the zroot zpool onto a pair of SATADOM SSDs, I now want to remove the old zroot SSDs and put them aside, for a short while.
The main reason for moving the zroot to SATADOM is they attach directly to the m/b freeing up drive bays and PCIe slots for other bigger storage.
The old zroot
The zpool import command (without parameters) “lists pools available to import”. In my case, this is the old zroot, appropriately named, zroot_old.
[23:30 r730-01 dvl ~] % sudo zpool import
pool: zroot_old
id: 5428373100764427346
state: ONLINE
action: The pool can be imported using its name or numeric identifier.
config:
zroot_old ONLINE
mirror-0 ONLINE
gpt/BTWA602403NR480FGN ONLINE
gpt/BTWA602401SD480FGN ONLINE
[23:30 r730-01 dvl ~] %
Grabbing more information:
[23:32 r730-01 dvl ~] % sudo diskinfo -v /dev/gpt/BTWA602403NR480FGN /dev/gpt/BTWA602403NR480FGN 512 # sectorsize 458627219456 # mediasize in bytes (427G) 895756288 # mediasize in sectors 4096 # stripesize 0 # stripeoffset 55758 # Cylinders according to firmware. 255 # Heads according to firmware. 63 # Sectors according to firmware. ATA INTEL SSDSC2BB48 # Disk descr. BTWA602403NR480FGNs0 # Disk ident. mrsas0 # Attachment Yes # TRIM/UNMAP support 0 # Rotation rate in RPM [23:35 r730-01 dvl ~] % sudo diskinfo -v /dev/gpt/BTWA602401SD480FGN /dev/gpt/BTWA602401SD480FGN 512 # sectorsize 458627219456 # mediasize in bytes (427G) 895756288 # mediasize in sectors 4096 # stripesize 0 # stripeoffset 55758 # Cylinders according to firmware. 255 # Heads according to firmware. 63 # Sectors according to firmware. ATA INTEL SSDSC2BB48 # Disk descr. BTWA602401SD480FGNs0 # Disk ident. mrsas0 # Attachment Yes # TRIM/UNMAP support 0 # Rotation rate in RPM [23:32 r730-01 dvl ~] %
Searching through /var/run/dmesg.boot, I find:
da0 at mrsas0 bus 1 scbus1 target 0 lun 0 da0:Fixed Direct Access SPC-4 SCSI device da0: Serial Number BTWA602401SD480FGN da0: 150.000MB/s transfers da0: 457862MB (937703088 512 byte sectors) da12 at mrsas0 bus 1 scbus1 target 12 lun 0 da12: Fixed Direct Access SPC-4 SCSI device da12: Serial Number BTWA602403NR480FGN da12: 150.000MB/s transfers da12: 457862MB (937703088 512 byte sectors)
Do not be distracted by that 150.000MB/s value, it is a known incorrect report.
I am going to guess that those are in drive slots 0 and 12.
Those will be removed, freeing up space for more drives.
EDIT: 2025-11-26 – yes, those were the slots. They have been removed.
Other items
While reviewing the output of gpart show (then referring to /var/log/messages), I found some action items.
This is configured as boot drive, 233G – it can be removed. I want to test booting from NVMe drives. The survey says it cannot be done on Dell R730. However, some
=> 40 488397088 nda4 GPT (233G)
40 1024 1 freebsd-boot (512K)
1064 984 - free - (492K)
2048 4194304 2 freebsd-swap (2.0G)
4196352 484200448 3 freebsd-zfs (231G)
488396800 328 - free - (164K)
nda4 at nvme4 bus 0 scbus20 target 0 lun 1
nda4:
nda4: Serial Number 21280E800995
nda4: nvme version 1.4
nda4: 238475MB (488397168 512 byte sectors)
This looks like one of those SanDisk drives I was experimenting with. It can be removed. It is mainly for testing.
=> 40 229552 da16 GPT (30G) [CORRUPT]
40 472 1 freebsd-boot (236K)
512 4096 2 efi (2.0M)
4608 224984 3 freebsd-ufs (110M)
Oh, not it’s not, it’s my mfsBSD thumbdrive:
da16 at umass-sim0 bus 0 scbus25 target 0 lun 0 da16:Removable Direct Access SPC-4 SCSI device da16: Serial Number AALPN3HOGJFA0U42 da16: 40.000MB/s transfers da16: 30526MB (62517248 512 byte sectors) da16: quirks=0x2
What about NVMe
This is the list of NVMe devices:
[0:04 r730-01 dvl ~] % sudo nvmecontrol devlist
nvme0: Samsung SSD 990 PRO 4TB
nvme0ns1 (3815447MB)
nvme1: Samsung SSD 990 PRO 4TB
nvme1ns1 (3815447MB)
nvme2: Samsung SSD 990 PRO 4TB
nvme2ns1 (3815447MB)
nvme3: Samsung SSD 990 PRO 4TB
nvme3ns1 (3815447MB)
nvme4: WDC WDS250G2B0C-00PXH0
nvme4ns1 (238475MB)
nvme5: Samsung SSD 990 EVO Plus 4TB
nvme5ns1 (3815447MB)
nvme6: Samsung SSD 980 PRO with Heatsink 1TB
nvme6ns1 (953869MB)
nvme7: Samsung SSD 980 PRO with Heatsink 1TB
nvme7ns1 (953869MB)
nvme8: Samsung SSD 990 EVO Plus 4TB
nvme8ns1 (3815447MB)
That’s 6x 4TB drives (so 12TB in a set of mirrors). There are also 2x 4TB Samsung SSDs, which are sitting on the work bench.
There are 2x 1TB Samsung SSD 980 PRO and that WDS250G2B0C-00PXH0 is a 250G device.
That’s it for tonight. This is just a starting point.
