Requesting Advice: Safe to Upgrade via GUI? 11.1-u7 to 11.2-u7 then 11.3-rc2... What about ZFS Flags?

[coolbreeze56]

Hello All,

I had issues getting my system to see the 11.2 train. That has resolved itself.

Now I'm hoping someone can let me know if it should be safe to upgrade from the GUI from 11.1-u7 to 11.2-u7. Is it just as simple as clicking "Apply Pending Updates"?

I have 12 TB of storage that is full of movies/series. I don't have any backups, but I do have all of the original discs in the attic. Though I would really HATE to have to reload them all, it's not the end of the world (and wouldn't be the first time).

Any advice about upgrading would be greatly appreciated.

Background:

• Only using for SMB Sharing. (no jails, vms etc)
• Boot Drive is a USB stick
• 4x4 TB RaidZ1

Thank you

 

[coolbreeze56]

Following up on this.

I went ahead and created an image of the USB drive (ImageUSB) and then ran the upgrade.

it seems to have worked great. SMB Shares are still running and data is accessible. I love the newer interface.

QUESTION: The message below came up. Should I upgrade these? What do I gain?

New feature flags are available for volume Storage. Refer to the "Upgrading a ZFS Pool" subsection in the User Guide "Installing and Upgrading" chapter and "Upgrading" section for more instructions.

 

[dftwd-admin]

Following up on this.

I went ahead and created an image of the USB drive (ImageUSB) and then ran the upgrade.

it seems to have worked great. SMB Shares are still running and data is accessible. I love the newer interface.

QUESTION: The message below came up. Should I upgrade these? What do I gain?

New feature flags are available for volume Storage. Refer to the "Upgrading a ZFS Pool" subsection in the User Guide "Installing and Upgrading" chapter and "Upgrading" section for more instructions.

Generally I wouldn't upgrade the ZFS pool without a full backup of the data. This is only my opinion. I believe the manual if I'm not mistaken warns of this.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Generally I wouldn't upgrade the ZFS pool without a full backup of the data. This is only my opinion. I believe the manual if I'm not mistaken warns of this.

Well backup really doesn't play into a zfs upgrade. What you need to know about the zfs upgrade is there is no going backwards and sometimes that means you can't down grade your system.

You're probably fine to upgrade because you upgraded from a EOL release to the next EOL release so no need to down grade. Really you should look at upgrading to latest release 11.3.

 

[coolbreeze56]

Hello @SweetAndLow and @dftwd-admin

Thank you both for your responses.

I was originally on a plan to upgrade to 11.3 (11.2-u7 was just a stop on the way). However, reading briefly through the forums, it seems like some people have had issues when upgrading to 11.3. Is this something I should be concerned about? My only purpose for this box is home network SMB storage for movies.

That said, I don't want to be running on an unsupported version that might not receive security updates. If 11.2 is no longer receiving security Updates (I assume that is the case if it's EOL) then I will be forced to move to 11.3.

ALSO, in regard to the ZFS upgrade... Does it improve anything (speed, consistency, reliability) to upgrade or is the change ultimately just for compatibility level? When it comes to FreeNAS and ZFS, I'm pretty green.

 

[ronclark]

Hello @SweetAndLow and @dftwd-admin

Thank you both for your responses.

I was originally on a plan to upgrade to 11.3 (11.2-u7 was just a stop on the way). However, reading briefly through the forums, it seems like some people have had issues when upgrading to 11.3. Is this something I should be concerned about? My only purpose for this box is home network SMB storage for movies.

That said, I don't want to be running on an unsupported version that might not receive security updates. If 11.2 is no longer receiving security Updates (I assume that is the case if it's EOL) then I will be forced to move to 11.3.

ALSO, in regard to the ZFS upgrade... Does it improve anything (speed, consistency, reliability) to upgrade or is the change ultimately just for compatibility level? When it comes to FreeNAS and ZFS, I'm pretty green.

I had not problems upgrading to the beta 11.3 then off two 11.3 release on two systems. 11.3 sure has lot of polish and so far no real complaints, infacted to fixed a few issues i had with net working and plug in for me. I just need to learn the new ACL mananger.

 

[coolbreeze56]

Thank you all for the support.

At the suggestions above, I successfully updated via GUI to 11.3.

The last thing is to figure out if I'm going to do the ZFS upgrade. I'm still open for guidance on understanding what the impact is there. Biggest thing is a don't want to accidently nuke the storage pool.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Most people would upgrade zfs without even thinking about it.