Best practice for upgrading Motherboard and CPU on my UNRAID server?

[awediohead]

Really just looking for any tips and advice to help the upgrade process go as smoothly as possible:

 

For example, since I'll be changing from an old Asus z-97k i5 4690k 16GB RAM DDR3 Intel based set up - to an AMD x570 + Ryzen 3700 with 32GB DDR4 - is there anything I should be watching out for, or anything I should "instruct" the system to do as it restarts to make it recognise the new hardware?

 

Or should this all just happen " automagically" ? Things "just working" has generally been my experience with using various Linux DE distros between different PCs, at least after a couple of restarts and updates, but I wanted to double check.

 

I'm not planning on making any initial changes to the array and cache drive ( 5 x 4TB drives on the array) and 2 x 500GB SSD cache drives, but should I be trying to copy over what order of SATA ports/connections each drive is connected to? Or are the drives recognised and ordered by their UUIDs? In other words when I start up the new build will UNRAID identify the drives in the array from what's stored on the UNRAID USB boot flash drive?

 

Anything else I should think about? Prepare for?
 

[MAM59]

Usually newer Mobos use UEFI, so you should check your stick if the folder "EFI-" is already renamed to "EFI".

 

If you attach the old Disks to normal SATA ports on the new board, there should be no problem recognizing them and reactivating the array.

But it cannot harm to take a screenshot of the the old disk assignments (which serial number goes where), print it out and have it ready in case something goes wrong and you need to create a new configuration from scratch.

Also, a good backup of the flashdrive is not bad too 🙂

 

[Frank1940]

I would also get printouts (or PDF prints) of many of the various tabs on the Settings tab of the GUI.  (If you have them, you will never need them. Murphy's Law does apply here!)  Look at all of them to see which you MIGHT have made changes on and print those out. 

 

Since you are moving from Intel to AMD, realize that AMD and Unraid have had issues.  See here for some things to watch out for:

 

        https://forums.unraid.net/topic/46802-faq-for-unraid-v6/page/2/#comment-819173

 

Edited December 11, 2022 by Frank1940

[awediohead]

Thanks MAM59 and Frank1940

 

Murphy's law, computer tech and I are long time acquaintances - so I appreciate the heads up on settings. TBH I've been putting this off for months because things do tend to go pear shaped on me, but forewarned is forearmed.

 

With regard to not overclocking RAM - I assume 'overclocking' includes any kind of "XMP" (I forget what AMD calls ii) type "overclock" - so to just run it at the default JDEC speed?

 

I'll have a dig in the BIOS UEFI settings for C-states too of course, and I assume the EFI MAM59 mentioned is basically about figuring out whether or not its currently UEFI or Legacy booting because it will be UEFI booting on the newer hardware?

 

Bottom line is there's a lot of people here who would either have a very solid plan in place before upgrading hardware, or are already so knowledgeable they wouldn't be very phased if things went wrong. I can only try to do the former, so I really appreciate the guidance.

 

That's especially true because my wife's disabled and very reliant on the server for entertainment and distraction from chronic pain. It's a coin toss between leaving it well alone, on an "if it ain't broke . . . " basis, and accepting that 9 year old hardware won't last for ever.

Cheers

 

 

[Frank1940]

Let me make one more observation.  There are fewer problem with hardware upgrades when your system is close to being a simple NAS box. Dockers don't generally cause problems (unless you are 'loaning' them a GPU for transcoding).  VMs on the other hand...

 

Both of my servers are basic NAS  boxes.  When I upgrade from 2008 era AMD processors (and MBs) to Intel i3 processors a few years back, I pull the old MBs boards out of the case.  Set aside the boot drive.  Installed the new MB, RAM and CPU.  Plugged in the boot drive.  Applied power and it was up and running in two minutes after hitting the power button.  It can be that simple!

 

PS---  My Media players are all Mini/Micro PCs running WIN10 and KODI.  So any transcoding is handled on the PC..

[MAM59]

30 minutes ago, awediohead said:

With regard to not overclocking RAM - I assume 'overclocking' includes any kind of "XMP" (I forget what AMD calls ii) type "overclock" - so to just run it at the default JDEC speed?

Depends on the board and the RAM (of course 🙂 ).

I've spend a week of testing with (the newer version of) memtest and was able to run my 128Gb (4 Dimms) at 3000Mhz, based on the XMP timing supplied in the RAMs.

But its true, the usally announced 3200 is barely functionell.

If you dont want to test for weeks, just run them at standard (2400) speed and settings and you are on the safe side.

But even then you should run at least one pass of memtest before going hot (you dont need UNRAID or drives for this, so you can do it BEFORE you do the real move)

 

Just install Mobo,CPU and RAM and give it some power and a keyboard and monitor (maybe you need to add a simple VGA card too). Then download the current memtest and put it onto a seperate USB Flash stick. Like UNRAID you can boot it directly from the stick.

Let it run overnight and look at the results. There should be no problems at 2400. You can be bold and use XMP settings and rerun. But surely you will run into troubles to be prepared to step down from these settings and repeat the tests each time (if errors show up, you can cancel immediatly, no need to wait for the evil end each time)

 

35 minutes ago, awediohead said:

currently UEFI or Legacy booting because it will be UEFI booting on the newer hardware?

usually newer hardware comes with UEFI turned on and legacy stuff disabled. But your old Flash Drive with UNRAID might not be "ready for UEFI" yet, so just take a look and prepare for a rename (the rename does not hurt even if you continue NOT to use UEFI)

 

[awediohead]

thank you both very much - again!

 

 MAM59 - I have a very current Memtest USB flash drive I will definitely do some tests with. Excellent advice! I have a couple of kits of DDR4 RAM to test - one 2 x 16 at 3200MHz and one 4 x 8 at 3733 MHz so it'll be interesting to figure out what works best.

 

Frank1940 - I have some VMs installed but 99% of it's current usage is as a media server with dockers - with just the 4 cores and no multithreading it's just not pokey enough to do media server duty and run a VM well at the same time. Given that I only ever installed the VMs to play around with and once they seemed to be working OK, haven't used them since, I'm happy to just delete them. I can always reinstall them if needed.

Cheers