[tpm] OT: Strategies for recovering a ZFS drive

[Alex Beamish]

Hi folks,

My long-serving OpenSolaris file server died sometime in the last 24 hours,
and while I had the important stuff backed up, I would dearly love to have
one last look at the files to make sure, as you do.

Because this was a bit of a technology experiment, I used ZFS, which worked
really well for me. The system was set up with one drive holding the OS,
and the other two acting as mirrored drives. Because the system no longer
even does a POST, I suspect the processor is fried. I opened up the case
and found a great deal of dust. Cleaning that up didn't help. No surprised.

I've been trying to figure out a simple way out of this predicament. My
original plan was to load ZFS on Linux [1] onto my existing workstation,
install the data drive, and try to mount it. Then I thought about buying a
PC, installing OpenSolaris on it and installing the data drive.

It's finally occurred to me that the best solution is probably just to buy
a new system, and install both the root drive and the data drives. It
should just boot up as if (almost) nothing happened.

Has anyone gone through this process recently?

Also, I've bought many of my systems from Sonnam, but it's been a while --
is Tiger Direct a better source for inexpensive hardware? Any other places
in the GTA on the Yea/Nay list? I'd like to spend $300-400 for a fairly
simple box.

Thanks!

1. http://zfsonlinux.org/faq.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.pm.org/pipermail/toronto-pm/attachments/20140810/74fd26e6/attachment.html>