Always do "zpool export" for easier and/or more reliable recovery?

If you zpool export a pool, the system to which the disks are attached can no longer use it, until you zpool import it again. So you can't do that routinely. It's meant for situations when you know you are moving a zpool somewhere by moving its physical media.

If you need to import a pool that wasn't properly exported, for instance because the server it was in died, you can simply use zpool import -f.


Theres is no situation in regular use where you would want to manually run a zpool export. Pools are imported expected automatically during the Linux boot and shutdown process.

However, ZFS zpools are already and inherently portable, provided access to the disks is still possible. You don't need to take any additional action do to what you're asking about.

Tags:

Linux

Backup

Zfs