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, […]
Consolidating the disk space in r730-01 Read More »
In this post, I’m moving my zroot zpool from larger devices to smaller devices. Why? Well, the smaller devices happen to attach directly to the main board of my server, albeit with some slight modification to a fan cowl. There have been several recent posts regarding this topic. I tried a different zpool approach, where I added new devices to the zpool and removed the old devices. That worked. It wasn’t ideal for
prod – moving to a SATADOM based zpool (zroot) using zfs snapshot and send | recv Read More »
These are some notes I want to keep handy. They will help me switch back and forth between UEFI and BIOS booting. In this post: FreeBSD 14.1 Dell R730 To move from BIOS boot to UEFI boot System BIOS | Boot Settings: Boot Mode = UEFI System BIOS | System Settings | Device Settings | PERC: Select Boot Device = None Then you have to wait for it to boot, query devices, the
Switching between BIOS and UEFI (and vice versa) on a Dell R730 Read More »
Yesterday I managed to move a zroot zpool from larger drives to smaller drives using snapshot, send, recv. Today, I’m doing the same thing. Yet, what is different? using serial numbers in some partition labels moving to SATADOM This really is a dry-run for when I do this on my production host, r730-01 – apart from the whole moving-to-smaller-drives part. host ssh keys NOTE: not shown in this post are messages like this:
Test run – moving to a SATADOM based zpool (zroot) using zfs snapshot and send | recv Read More »
Today, I’m going to try a test run of moving a zroot into a smaller zpool. Over the past few posts, I’ve tested moving to smaller zpools using zfs remove. That’s not what I want to do with my zpool – mostly because it does not leave you with a functioning original zpool. I’m following https://www.hagen-bauer.de/2025/08/zfs-migration-to-smaller-disk.html and I particularly like their use of labels on each partition. In this post: FreeBSe 14.3 mfsbsd-14.2-RELEASE-amd64
Test run – moving to a smaller zpool (zroot) using zfs snapshot and send | recv Read More »
Over the past week or so I’ve done some “stupid” things with zpools. I wanted a place to document some of the things I’ve read along the way: renaming a zpool: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/renaming-zfs-pool-via-zpool-import.65498/ getting the mrsas driver instead of the mfi driver – https://forum.netgate.com/topic/102137/dell-r330-perc-h330-sas (in short, at the loader prompt, issue `set hw.mfi.mrsas_enable=”1″` and then `boot`) I’ll add to this list as I find new stuff.
Doing stupid things with zpools Read More »
This is another in the series of shrinking zpools. In this test, I’m repeating the previous test, only with UEFI, not BIOS, boot partitions. Partitioning root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart create -s gpt mfisyspd0 mfisyspd0 created root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart create -s gpt mfisyspd1 mfisyspd1 created root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart create -s gpt mfisyspd2 mfisyspd2 created root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart create -s gpt mfisyspd3 mfisyspd3 created root@r730-04:/home/dvl # gpart add -t efi -s 260M -a 4k mfisyspd0 mfisyspd0p1
Moving a zpool to smaller drives with UEFI #ZFS #FreeBSD Read More »
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
Moving a zpool to smaller drives #ZFS #FreeBSD Read More »
After yesterday’s failure to shrink a parition-based zpool. After reading this post, you want also want to read this other successful post. You will recall that expedition ended with: dvl@r730-04:~ $ zpool add zroot mirror /dev/da2p3 /dev/da3p3 cannot use ‘/dev/da2p3′: must be a block device or regular file Today, I’m going to try the same thing with whole disks, just to see if that works. You might also want to read Moving a
Let’s try shrinking a whole-disk zpool Read More »
This post is part of a series of storage-related posts. The goal: move the zroot of r730-01 to smaller drives. NOTE: This approach failed. Investigations continue, however this post is not something you should try. This other successful post might be useful, although I still don’t know why the attempt in this post fails. Earlier today, as the first step in my proof-of-concept, I moved the zroot of r730-04 from 2x SATADOM device
Moving a zpool to smaller drives #ZFS #FreeBSD – fails Read More »