Need help moving from a virtualized (ESXi) 5.0.2 to v6 without losing data

[ashaneil]

Hi,

I am running unRAID 5.0.2 as virtual machine on top of ESXi v5.5 (essentially a copy of the Atlas build created by Johnmm a while back). My unRAID array consists of a number of 3TB and 2TB drives totaling 37 TB (1 parity + 15 drives). Now that unRAID 6 is here, I am thinking of moving to unRAID 6 so take advantage of all its goodies.

 

The problem is that I have no idea how to go about moving to v6 from v5.0.2 when unRAID is running as VM.

 

Anyone have any suggestions how to do the upgrade without losing all my data? Do I need to build a parallel unRAID box - I really hope not?

 

Thanks for the help...

[uldise]

Hi,

I am running unRAID 5.0.2 as virtual machine on top of ESXi v5.5 (essentially a copy of the Atlas build created by Johnmm a while back). My unRAID array consists of a number of 3TB and 2TB drives totaling 37 TB (1 parity + 15 drives). Now that unRAID 6 is here, I am thinking of moving to unRAID 6 so take advantage of all its goodies.

 

The problem is that I have no idea how to go about moving to v6 from v5.0.2 when unRAID is running as VM.

 

Anyone have any suggestions how to do the upgrade without losing all my data? Do I need to build a parallel unRAID box - I really hope not?

 

Thanks for the help...

 

what you mean with "losing all my data"?

are you running other VMs on esxi too now?

 

BTW, no need to move from ESXi , all new features of v6 should work with your current config too..

[garycase]

I'm not running UnRAID under ESXi, but as I understand it, if you're booting from the flash drive (via PLOP) you don't have to do anything except copy the upgraded files ... exactly as if it was "bare metal".

 

If you're booting from a VMDK, you'll need to update that VMDK ... I believe there are several folks in the forum who have posted details for this.

 

I moved your question to the "UnRAID as Guest" area, since that's more likely to get the attention of folks who are doing exactly that.

 

[BobPhoenix]

Here is how I upgraded my v5 VM to v6:

[*]Get screen shot of the disk serial numbers and their position in the array.

[*]Shutdown unRAID VM

[*]Shutdown a Windows VM

[*]Attach unRAID VMDK to Windows VM

[*]Boot Windows VM

[*]Make backup of the unRAID VMDK

[*]Format the unRAID VMDK give it a volume name of UNRAID

[*]Extract the files from the unRAID v6 zip file to the VMDK

[*]Run MakeBootable.bat from VMDK

[*]Change label on the unRAID VMDK NOT equal to UNRAID (made mine BOOT)

[*]Shutdown Windows VM

[*]Detach unRAID VMDK

[*]Shutdown all other VMs running

[*]Shutdown ESXi server

[*]Remove unRAID flash drive from ESXi server

[*]Take to Windows workstation

[*]Backup unRAID flash drive

[*]Format unRAID flash drive give it a name of UNRAID

[*]Extract the unRAID v6 files from the zip drive to the unRAID flash drive - run MakeBootable.bat if you want it bootable

[*]Copy the unRAID ".key" file from your backup to the config directory on your flash drive

[*]Remove flash drive from Window workstation

[*]Plug flash drive back into ESXi server

[*]Boot ESXi server

[*]Start unRAID VM

[*]Connect up to unRAID Web GUI and reassign all drives to correct slots from screen shot

[*]Check the "Trust Parity" - not at home so exact wording maybe different

[*]Start unRAID server from the GUI

[*]Parity check is started (I believe anyway) either cancel or wait until finished

[*]Install version 6 plugins you want or even better install Dockers that have what you want

Enjoy.

 

Edit:  Added the MakeBootable.bat on #19

[garycase]

Thanks for chiming in with the exact steps Bob.

 

FWIW in Step #26 the checkbox is labeled "Parity is already valid"