I'm looking advice and guidance about moving an existing unRaid server to new hardware.

 

My existing machine is barely adequate and cannot be expanded, so I ordered parts for a new build, but I'm not sure how I will move everything over.

 

What steps are involved (after a full backup of course)? Is it just a question of moving the flash drive over to the new machine? What about all the configurations in my Dockers and VMs? Can I just plug my old hard drives in and go? What configs may need to be tweaked?

 

Thanks!

It acutally pretty easy to do.  Here is a great video by Spaceinvader One which covers what your trying to do.

Thanks @Gragorg. That's exactly what I was looking for. Perfect. I should have known Spaceinvaderone would have it covered!

Bit of a thread necro but to follow onto the video posted, Spaceinvader's example, wrt harddrives, seems to only involve standard sata migration.

 

How would HDD migration work if going from a PERC700 HW Raid to non-HWRaid since the identification would most certainly change.

3 hours ago, Toady001 said:

How would HDD migration work if going from a PERC700 HW Raid to non-HWRaid since the identification would most certainly change.

Not well. That's one of the main reasons RAID controllers are strongly not recommended. If the RAID card doesn't mess with drive geometry (some do) then the only thing needed would be to correctly identify the drives and match them to their slots.

 

If the RAID card alters drive geometry then it's quite possible you will end up with incompatible partitions, which may or may not be fixable without data loss.

 

Always use plain HBA cards, or make sure the RAID controller is in IT (not IR) mode. Simply assigning each drive on a RAID card to a RAID0 may allow the card to work, but you are still going to possibly have all the above issues. Some RAID cards don't have IT firmware. Also, some cards don't pass critical SMART data correctly, meaning Unraid will not be able to help you stay on top of drive health issues.

 

As always, make sure you have any critical files backed up. Unraid or any RAID is NOT backup, it's high availability. You must still keep a second (or more) copies elsewhere.

 

Worst case you may need to restore from backups if the migration isn't successful.

2 hours ago, JonathanM said:

Not well. That's one of the main reasons RAID controllers are strongly not recommended. If the RAID card doesn't mess with drive geometry (some do) then the only thing needed would be to correctly identify the drives and match them to their slots.

 

If the RAID card alters drive geometry then it's quite possible you will end up with incompatible partitions, which may or may not be fixable without data loss.

 

Always use plain HBA cards, or make sure the RAID controller is in IT (not IR) mode. Simply assigning each drive on a RAID card to a RAID0 may allow the card to work, but you are still going to possibly have all the above issues. Some RAID cards don't have IT firmware. Also, some cards don't pass critical SMART data correctly, meaning Unraid will not be able to help you stay on top of drive health issues.

 

As always, make sure you have any critical files backed up. Unraid or any RAID is NOT backup, it's high availability. You must still keep a second (or more) copies elsewhere.

 

Worst case you may need to restore from backups if the migration isn't successful.

Thanks. The card doesn't support IT mode. Related to the SAS2108 chip.

 

I expected worst case anyways so will be planning on new drives for the setup and restoring from backups.

 

Edit: Just a second query, could i run a trial on the new server, copy everything over and then migrate the license from the old USB to new USB?

Edited September 16, 20241 yr by Toady001

On 9/16/2024 at 11:10 AM, Toady001 said:

 

Edit: Just a second query, could i run a trial on the new server, copy everything over and then migrate the license from the old USB to new USB?

Yeah, that's what I'd like to know. I want to move my license, containers, and their data to a new machine with new drives.

On 9/16/2024 at 11:10 AM, Toady001 said:

could i run a trial on the new server, copy everything over and then migrate the license from the old USB to new USB?

Yes, but it would be easier to continue to use the same physical USB stick on the new server, that way you don't need to migrate the license. All your customization lives in the config folder, so just make a copy of that minus the trial.key file, erase the config folder on the old USB, making a backup first just in case, copy your new config folder to the old USB, put the license file that belongs to the old key back in the config folder, and you're done.

17 minutes ago, ArSoN114 said:

Yeah, that's what I'd like to know. I want to move my license, containers, and their data to a new machine with new drives.

Containers have data on your drives, so at least some of them must make the trip. It would be easier to move all the current drives along with the USB to a new machine, then upgrade the drives you want to replace.

21 hours ago, JonathanM said:

Yes, but it would be easier to continue to use the same physical USB stick on the new server, that way you don't need to migrate the license. All your customization lives in the config folder, so just make a copy of that minus the trial.key file, erase the config folder on the old USB, making a backup first just in case, copy your new config folder to the old USB, put the license file that belongs to the old key back in the config folder, and you're done.

Problem is the config won't map the drives correctly as I am going from a PERC700 raid controller to no raid controller so the drive identities will almost certainly change. The only drive that will likely migrate correctly is my cache drive as that is via a pci-e to M.2. Hence why running 2 instances, replicating the old to new and then just migrating the key over.

 

Will back everything up and try just move the usb over first and see. Just trying to prepare myself for when it's ready to move

Edited September 18, 20241 yr by Toady001

What would be the process if I have complete new drives? Is there a simple solution for moving the data accordingly?

You can use Unassigned Devices with each of the original drives to copy their contents to the new array.

20 hours ago, trurl said:

You can use Unassigned Devices with each of the original drives to copy their contents to the new array.

So, I just follow spaceinvaderone's instruction in preparation, then put all disks into the new machine mounting it via unassigned devices, copy everything onto the new cache and pool and at last start all the dockers again, right?

Edited April 25, 20251 yr by Chlorgas

right