I just updated my server running FreeBSD from version 8.1 to the latest legacy version, 8.3.
I figured I’d take advantage of the new ZFS version and upgrade to that too. Currently I was running the RELEASE version, not the RELENG, so it was pretty outdated: zpool version 14 and zfs version 3.

I was a little skeptical of the process and duration since all my data is on there. I was quite surprised (but not really) at the simplicity.

First I updated my pools:

zpool upgrade -a

Then I upgraded all of my filesystems (recursively).

zfs upgrade -r storage

Including man page reading, I was done in less than 5 minutes. The process of writing this up took more time.

ZFS rocks! It’s a simple, easy to use, easy to admin drive and “RAID” management, and awesome backup/restoration platform.