Backup ZFS pool metadata

Question

Where does ZFS store metadata about pools (how they are use - as mirrors, RAIDs, etc.) on a Linux system (I'm on Ubuntu 13.10 now)? I would like to be able to recover from data destruction in the following scenario:

• everything runs on one Linux PC and a NAS (to be seen as a passive data container) where pool partitions reside
• data partitions saved without damage (backups are not interesting for this scenario)
• PC caught on fire and is destoryed

Which directories do I back up (to an external partition outside of the ZFS pool) on the PC (should be the metadata directories mentioned in the first question)?

Answer 1

All the metadata is stored on ZFS partitions themselves. You can take the disks, move them to another machine, connect in whatever way (ZFS will find the disks and figure out "what goes where") and run "zpool import" and it's gonna work.