FreeNAS increasing storage problem

[nbat58]

I hope someone can help me recover my data on FreeNAS, I am very scared in loosing 3+tb worth of data, this is set up:

FreeNAS 0.7.4919 AMD64 full install
Abit AN8 SLI motherboard
AMD Opteron 165 dual core processor
2gb DDR2 Ram
HP SC44GE SAS Controller
PCI Graphics

I had 4 x 1.5tb Samsung F2 drives installed with approx 3+tb of media, I have installed the HP PCIE SC44GE SAS Controller and added 4 x 2tb Samsung F3 HDD's without any issues, I could see my drives on the FreeNAS GUI and proceeded with the following:

Disks|Management|Disk|Add
Added disk1, disk2, disk3, and disk4 Filesystem= 'ZFS storage pool device' and Status= 'ONLINE'.
('Add' & 'Apply changes')

Disks|ZFS|Pools|Virtual device|Add
Created one virtual device, name: 'Storage 2', type: 'Single-parity, RAID-5', all four devices selected, Description: 'vdev'
('Add' & 'Apply changes')

Disks|ZFS|Pools|Management|Add
Name: 'NAS1', Virtual devices: 'Storage 2 (raidz1, vdev)'.
'Root', 'Mount point' and 'Description' I left empty
('Add' & 'Apply changes')
Afterwards I can see: NAS1 - Health= ONLINE

I have not created any dataset.

I can see the new 2tb drives which are Health = online My problem now is that my old pool with the 4 x 1.5tb is showing as Health = unknown, have I trashed all my data or can I bring this pool back to online.

I can see all 8 drives online and also I can see two virtual devices, the problem is when I first added my second pool, I have named it the same as the first pool with data on it, after doing that the second pool was showing with exactly the same information as the first pool, ie capacity of pool, storage space ect...

So I went and deleted the new pool which I last added (with the new drives) and now my old pool (with the data on) is still showing as unknown.

If I delete the pool that is showing unknown and add afresh the virtual device, will this delete all the data on that pool or will it still keep my data there as the virtual device is still intact?

My other question is: if I manage to do the above and hopefully retreive my data back, how do I merge the two pools together, is it just a question to add a new pool and it will merge it with the first one showing as one drive?

Should the new pool be named the same as the first or doesn't it matter?

Many thanks for all your help.

 

[nbat58]

Well after hours or trying to get my data back I have lost all of it in the end 7 months worth of hard work all down the drain.

With FreeNAS you can loose your data even if none of your drives fail, I am currently looking at another NAS OS, for anyone outhere balancing the pros and cons of a NAS OS, make sure you do your ground work well, I will not recommend FreeNAS with ZFS to anyone reason being is that it's experimental and only uses version 7 of ZFS.

You can read my full story here:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1520775

 

[teknojnky]

Unfortunately you have learned the painful lesson, that no raid is a substitute for backups.

It does not matter what nas OS you use.

Backup means you have multiple copies of your data, peferrably in different physical locations.

Storing all your data in a single device/place, means if that fails for any reason (user error/hardware/software/theft/fire/flood/etc), then you no longer have your data.

I know it sucks, but hopefully you will be wiser now.

 

[nbat58]

Unfortunately you have learned the painful lesson, that no raid is a substitute for backups.

It does not matter what nas OS you use.

Backup means you have multiple copies of your data, peferrably in different physical locations.

Storing all your data in a single device/place, means if that fails for any reason (user error/hardware/software/theft/fire/flood/etc), then you no longer have your data.

I know it sucks, but hopefully you will be wiser now.

I agree, but I didn't expect to loose all of my data to a software bug though.