General Upgrade Advice from FreeNAS v8.3.0

[Invex09]

First off thanks for putting such an awesome OS together. I'm happy to say I haven't needed to visit the forums very often because after setting up my machine 6+ years ago, it's just done its just job without any issues. I have a machine running FreeNAS v8.3.0 that started having trouble w/ random reboots as of a few months ago that were, again, the first chinks in the armor of a machine running fine for 6+ years. My guess for the random reboots would be overheating because I cranked my 3 existing fans up to High (they were on low) and added another one to the case and have been fine for a few days, but it's odd that it happened all of a sudden, when the 3 fans on low were fine before. It also could be a faulty PSU, but again I've been stable since I cranked the fans up and added a new one.

Going forward, I'd like to upgrade my setup to the latest version of FreeNAS and put in a better OS drive - currently I'm running FreeNAS off of a 2GB SanDisk card connected through an IDE adapter, I'd like to use an extra SSD - and am looking for advice on the most efficient way to do that. Ideally, I'd love to install the latest version of FreeNAS to an SSD, swap out the bootable OS drive and have it automatically recognize the existing ZFS volumes. Or I wasn't sure if there was a tool through the command line or the WebGUI that would walk me through the upgrade process.

Thanks in advance for any advice, current specs are below

CURRENT SPECS
==============
OS: FreeNAS-8.3.0-RELEASE-p1-x64 (r12825)
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU 530 @ 2.93GHz
Memory: 16GB DDR3 (4 x 4GB) @ 1600MHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H55-USB3
Storage: OS-Drive (2GB SanDisk Card w/ IDE Adapter Board), Data-Drives (3 x WD Red 3TB 5400RPM SATA 6Gb/s; 3 x Samsung 2TB IntelliPower SATA 3Gb/s)
PSU: Antec EarthWatts EA-380D Green
Case: Antec Three Hundred (ATX Mid Tower)

 

[JohnDigital]

Get an 8.3 config backup first, then reinstall freenas 8.3 on a new OS Drive, small SSD or USB flash. Restore the config in the fresh install and make sure everything is up and running. Then id start a slow upgrade process from 8.3 to 9 to 9.10 to 11.x to 11.3-U1 (via the Switch to Upgrade trains in the GUI), keeping config backups along the way. I dont think its a good idea (or possible??) to restore an 8.3 config to an 11.3 install. There may be a recommended upgrade path spelled out if you look around the forums. If you have warden jails, those will all need to be migrated to iocage jails along the way or rebuilt from scratch when you arrive at version 11.3 (best and cleanest option imo). Ive always done this manually, but maybe there is a tool for this now. You might ask google on the subject of jail migration from warden to iocage.

I wouldnt start any of this until you get to the bottom of your random reboots. Do away with this 2GB drive connected via IDE firstly, after 6 years its likely toast. If the reboots remain, youll have to start with basic hardware troubleshooting, first with the RAM.

Good luck let me know if I can help further.