I have a simple setup:
- Ubuntu 13.04 on internal USB thumbdrive
- 4xSATA drive in raidz spool with some volumes /tank/vol1, /tank/vol2
Where does zfs store its' configuration data – is it on member drives of zpool?
What would happen if USB thumbdrive dies and I need to reinstall it and access data on zpool?
Best Answer
The configuration is stored in the member drives.
There is also a zpool.cache file in /etc/zfs or /boot that has a copy of the configuration so that the kernel mounts zfs filesystems that it had previously known about. A zfs volume will not automatically be mounted at startup until it's imported (which adds it to the cache file).