ZFS 'read-only' device / pool scan / import?

[Pete French]

> the FreeBSD code goes and 'looks' for all the drives anyway at startup - 
> i.e. it doesn't have something akin to zfs.cache] - so I kind of didn't see 
> the point...

Theres a file /boot/zfs/zpool.cache which is, I think, the equivalent

> I also didn't think you could export a faulted pool :) [or, as the original 
> thread started - that once you'd tried to import a faulted pool, the 
> on-drive metadata gets change, possibly corrupted - or at the very least it 
> makes a note of the fact the missing drives are, 'missing' :)

You can do a forced export - as long as the system doesnt think
the pool is imported then an import will go looking. I made a
similar mess of my drives the first time I changed discs oover, and I
also didnt know about the import/export trick. But since then I
have used iit every time I have got into trouble and it has always
worked for me.

cheers,

-pete.