Something like this: https://www.canadacomputers.com/search/product.php?cPath=14_679 <https://www.canadacomputers.com/search/product.php?cPath=14_679&item_id=069771> &item_id=069771 External USB, preferable 3.0 over 2, or eSata if you have the port. If you doint' need two drive capacity then pick a single. Add the current the drive you need and let it copy. I tend to use ext4 for externals so to minimize complexity on attaching to other systems, but YMMV. [Jose A. Dias] -----Original Message----- From: talk [mailto:talk-bounces@gtalug.org]On Behalf Of David Mason via talk Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2018 10:21 AM To: GTALUG Talk Subject: Re: [GTALUG] Which Distro is Best for Running a ZFS-on-Linux Fileserver. On Aug 25, 2018, 6:21 AM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk@gtalug.org>, wrote: | From: David Mason via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | I am interested in this question too. I currently am running on Debian | 7.7 but I’m not sure I can upgrade to a more current version, which is | frustrating because I want to install Java (to run a Minecraft server) | and (when I tried, so while back) I couldn’t get it to install because I | had such an old version of Debian. Back in 2017 March 12 you mentioned a problem "Updating Wheezy to Jessie". Did you try Stewart's and Lennart's suggestions? I put a little time into it, but didn’t get to success. Unfortunately, life intervened. It’s still important, but as you say, as you fall behind, it becomes more difficult to leap-frog into the present. This is exactly the kind of problem that a debian local users group might address. Recently I suggested that GTALUG could function as a debian LUG. I guess that here we have a test of this idea. I think it already does. What did you have in mind beyond the mailing list? Even for the debian upgrade attempt it might be good to have a backup. Yes, I know. :-) After enough time, the old hardware becomes obsolete too and it makes total system rebuild more sensible than update. In my most recent example, I jumped about 15 years ahead in hardware. This system is <5 years old, and at the time was kind-of leading edge. so I’m not worried about that. It’s a 4.4Tb raidz2 at 64% and has performed flawlessly. Unfortunately I don’t really have the time to do any serious digging right now, either. How do others backup their ZFS systems? Getting a 4T external drive doesn’t seem like the best plan, but maybe there isn’t any other choice. ../Dave