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How to Replace a Failing Hard Drive in a ZFS System

I ordered a new Seagate Skyhawk 4TB hard drive. While waiting for it to arrive, I thought I could write a post about how to replace a failing old  drive in a ZFS system like mine. 

The first thing to do is get as much information about the system hard drives. I'll need information on the drives.

#ls -la /dev/disk/by-id        #to list all my drives with their model and numbers


donato@donato-ubuntu:~$ ls -la /dev/disk/by-id  total 0  drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 720 Aug  3 12:34 .  drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 160 Aug  3 12:34 ..  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 Aug  3 12:34 ata-Crucial_CT240M500SSD1_14210C259405 -> ../../sda  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Aug  3 12:34 ata-Crucial_CT240M500SSD1_14210C259405-part1 -> ../../sda1  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Aug  3 12:34 ata-Crucial_CT240M500SSD1_14210C259405-part2 -> ../../sda2  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Aug  3 12:34 ata-Crucial_CT240M500SSD1_14210C259405-part3 -> ../../sda3  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Aug  3 12:34 ata-Crucial_CT240M500SSD1_14210C259405-part4 -> ../../sda4  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 Aug  3 12:34 ata-ST2000DM001-1CH164_W1E8B1ZS -> ../../sdc  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Aug  3 12:34 ata-ST2000DM001-1CH164_W1E8B1ZS-part1 -> ../../sdc1  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Aug  3 12:34 ata-ST2000DM001-1CH164_W1E8B1ZS-part9 -> ../../sdc9  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 Aug  3 12:34 ata-ST2000DM001-1ER164_Z5600J73 -> ../../sde  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Aug  3 12:34 ata-ST2000DM001-1ER164_Z5600J73-part1 -> ../../sde1  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Aug  3 12:34 ata-ST2000DM001-1ER164_Z5600J73-part9 -> ../../sde9  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 Aug  3 12:34 ata-ST3000DM008-2DM166_Z50520KD -> ../../sdb  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Aug  3 12:34 ata-ST3000DM008-2DM166_Z50520KD-part1 -> ../../sdb1  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Aug  3 12:34 ata-ST3000DM008-2DM166_Z50520KD-part9 -> ../../sdb9  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 Aug  3 12:34 ata-ST31000524AS_5VP9CZC8 -> ../../sdd  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Aug  3 12:34 ata-ST31000524AS_5VP9CZC8-part1 -> ../../sdd1  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Aug  3 12:34 ata-ST31000524AS_5VP9CZC8-part9 -> ../../sdd9  donato@donato-ubuntu:~$     

#zpool status dpool -v     #to get the status of the pool

#fdisk -l                  #list your disks

You can set the pool properties to automatically use replacement disk or expand to a larger size with:

# zpool set autoreplace=on poolname      #to set any new disk to replace old disk
# zpool set autoexpand=on poolname	 #to expand size of pool automatically 

Then:

# zpool offline poolname device  	 #to set old device offline

Remove the old / failed disk. 

Insert the replacement disk.

Run the replacement command:

# zpool replace poolname device

Bring the disk online with:

# zpool online poolname device

NOTE: that if you set the autoreplace property of the pool any new device found on the location will be formatted and used as replacement, but this might not work on your particular hardware.  Also, having the autoreplace property "off" is a good check whenever you make a mistake in naming the device.  That is why it is good practice to use the disk ID instead of the location. 


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