I have an old gaming rig acting as my current NAS/media server running TrueNAS on the bare metal. Originally I was looking to buy new HDD’s for my HL15 and then rsync everything over the network, but I wanted to know if it’s possible to just import the existing HDD’s/ZFS pool.
Yes you can do a zpool export on the gaming rig, physically move the drives and do a zpool import on the HL15. The only issue I can potentially think of is ZFS version. If you’ve been keeping TrueNAS up to date and upgrading the feature flags when prompted, your pool may have a more current version of ZFS than Rocky/Houston and you won’t be able to import it.
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You may have to do something with dalias on the HL15 with Houston if you care about the friendly names. I think I remember this giving me some grief with zpool import when my HL15 was new, and I was trying to test both TrueNAS and Houston to make a decision.
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I have been keeping the TrueNAS OS up to date, but I haven’t upgraded to the latest version of ZFS/feature flags. If I ever get a quiet weekend, I’ll be sure to give it a try. Thanks!
If you haven’t upgraded the feature flags, you have a higher chance of success. The worst that can happen is the import fails and you return the drives to the gaming rig and go with plan B. There are commands you can use to compare the feature flags in use on the pool vs what is supported on the version running on the HL15.
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