Issues with ZFS Pool Configuration and Data Recovery

I recently set up a ZFS pool consisting of five devices: an 8TB NAS HDD, a 2TB NVME SSD, two 1TB SSDs, and an unassigned fifth spot. I also designated a separate 1TB SSD as the main array device. Initially, everything was functioning well. However, it's important to note that only the 8TB HDD contained data; the other drives were empty.

Problems arose when I attempted to create a swap file on a different 1TB NVME cache drive. This action seemed to disrupt the system. Upon restarting the array, I received an error message indicating a configuration issue, and the array refused to start.

In an attempt to rectify the situation, I deleted the pool and tried to recreate it. However, the system now insists on formatting all the drives in the pool, claiming they're unmountable. This is problematic as these drives are already ZFS formatted and contain valuable data.

Each time I attempt to create a new pool, I encounter the same error message:

 

"Jul 10 08:08:48 Tower unassigned.devices: Mounting partition 'sdb1' at mountpoint '/mnt/disks/annoyingtesttwo'... Jul 10 08:08:50 Tower unassigned.devices: Mount of 'sdb1' failed: 'cannot open 'annoyingtesttwo': dataset does not exist ' Jul 10 12:29:05 Tower unassigned.devices: Mounting partition 'sdb1' at mountpoint '/mnt/disks/annoyingtesttwo'... Jul 10 12:29:08 Tower unassigned.devices: Mount of 'sdb1' failed: 'cannot open 'annoyingtesttwo': dataset does not exist ' Jul 10 15:44:51 Tower emhttpd: WDC_W**************K(8TB the main one)”

 

The 'annoyingtesttwo' mentioned in the error message is a temporary pool I created during my troubleshooting attempts. It doesn't need to be mounted, so I'm unsure how to proceed.

At this point, my primary goal is to recover approximately 4TB of data from my 8TB HDD. Given the persistent issues I've encountered with ZFS, I'm considering abandoning it and recreating the array using XFS instead. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

11 hours ago, mrchem said:

I recently set up a ZFS pool consisting of five devices

 

11 hours ago, mrchem said:

it's important to note that only the 8TB HDD contained data

 

I'm not following this part, if it was a 5 device zfs pool how would the data be only in one disk?

 

Also, please post the diagnostics.

The 8TB HDD was already formatted zfs when it was in the Array and then I transferred all the data to it (it's still there) from the other drives before formatting them to create the pool. All the sudden the Array stops and I get "Wrong Config" error multiple times. 

tower-diagnostics-20230709-0657.zip

So it was in the array and you then moved it to pool? You cannot keep the data if you do that, post the output of:

zpool import