Migrating FreeNAS to new hardware

[Raven9810]

Hello, quick question. I am going to be migrating my FreeNAS system to new hardware. Storage drives will remain the same though.

My current system is on version 9.3 but the new system will be on 11. Is it ok to backup my current config from 9.3 and restore it onto the new system version 11? Or is it recommended to first update my current system to 11 before I backup the config and restore?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Dice]

I would recommend doing updates to the current system before migration.
I don't recall if updates straight from 9.3 to 11 is supported. You may need to make an 'intermediate landning' on 9.10.
I suggest you make a search on the forum.

 

[Raven9810]

I would recommend doing updates to the current system before migration.
I don't recall if updates straight from 9.3 to 11 is supported. You may need to make an 'intermediate landning' on 9.10.
I suggest you make a search on the forum.

Thanks Dice! I was thinking I would have to, but wanted to see if I could skip the step. I appreciate the quick response.

 

[pschatz100]

Your safest bet would be to update from 9.3 to 9.10, then update from 9.10 to 11. Save a copy of your configuration at each step, and do not update the version of your zfs pools until you are certain that 11 is running OK. Once you have 11 running OK on the old hardware, then you can easily migrate to new hardware.

This is what I would do. It is straightforward, and gives you a couple of intermediate check points if something gets weird along the way.

 

[Ericloewe]

I don't recall if updates straight from 9.3 to 11 is supported.

They are.

 

[Raven9810]

I was able to update my current system to the most recent stable version 11, but ran into issues with my CrashPlan Plugin I use to backup offsite. I will post in the Plugin forum to see if I can get help on this one or I will just nuke the Crashplan plugin and jail and create them again, before backing up the config and restoring on my new hardware.

One more question though; will I have any issues restoring my config on my new system without the storage drives connected, just to test and ensure the system runs correctly and I can get an IP and connect to the web interface? Then, once I verify I can connect to it and it seems to be running, shut down the new system, connect the storage drives and boot back up?

Thanks again for the input!

 

[Ericloewe]

It's not something I'd do, but I can't really think of a mechanism for it to break things.