FreeNAS to unRAID

[lafrance]

I realise that this question has probably been asked before but now having discovered unRAID is there a feasible way to import a FreeNAS volume into unRAID without loosing data?

 

Having now played around with the OS I am highly impressed and would really like to make the switch if possible.

 

Many thanks in advance for any help with this.

 

LaFrance

[trurl]

You must let unRAID partition and format any disk it will use in the array or cache pool. You will have to copy the data.

[bman]

Correct. So in essence, you will be running your FreeNAS as normal, and an unRAID NAS at the same time.  Once you've got them both working and networked together, mount your FreeNAS volume on your unRAID system, and rsync all your data across to your unRAID share(s) as required.

 

FreeNAS does not support the XFS (or ReiserFS) volumes used by unRAID, and conversely unRAID does not support the ZFS volumes used with FreeNAS, at least by default. You can search for ways to add ZFS support to unRAID, but it requires lots of DIY.  For these reasons, build both, copy from one to the next, then dismantle the unwanted server and reuse its drives.

 

 

[kNoX]

If you only have one server but a backup of all important data you can use the community applications plugin on your unraid to install the zfs plugin.

At boot time if there is a zfs pool detected in the server it gets mounted at /yourZFSpoolname. Then you can use a local rsync or cp command to copy your pool to the unraid drives. For example I use: "rsync -amvhW --no-compress --progress --stats --exclude .DS_Store /pool/ /mnt/user/data"

 

I tested this with a degraded test pool and it worked for me but it could be dangerous and it was not that much faster then a rsync over gigabit ethernet.

I am only testing unraid right now and decided for me it is not worth the risk of loosing data and just did the rsync over the network.

Because zfs is not officially supported every unraid update can or will break the zfs plugin and you do not have any warning if a drive fails in the zfs pool. I could not even tell that the test pool was degraded when booting the server with only two of the three drives. 

As long as there is no nativ support for ZFS on Linux build in unraid I will keep a small zfs pool in my microserver as a backup of my important data.