Hi,

 

I am now finally moving to x64 boat with my unRAID and I need your help with this.

 

I have licence that I bought over 10 years ago and the usb stick is very old too as you can figure. I wanna change it as well.

The version I have now is 5.0.5 and I was thinking I could just install the newest version (6.8.3) to a new usb stick and use my old license, can it be done and how?

 

And then I would have a vanilla OS on the new usb, could I just connect my new disks and rebuild the array with the data being intact?

 

My motherboard (A2SDi-4C-HLN4F) has sata and sas ports. Should I use sata ports or can I connect all hdd's to the sas port? Will this effect in speed somehow?

 

Thank you in advance!

 

 

It has been along time since Version 6 first came out.  The conversion from version 5 to version 6 has a few landmines that have to be avoided.  Here is a link to the Wiki on doing the conversion.

 

    https://wiki.unraid.net/index.php/Upgrading_to_UnRAID_v6

 

Now, not of it is applicable to every upgrade but it covers virtually all of the problems that were encountered by the hundreds (or even thousands) who have already done it.  Be sure to notice that there is a link to the "short and sweet' instructions at the top of the Wiki.   Those are the instructions for the folks who were running a simple NAS.

42 minutes ago, CaptainSpalding said:

The version I have now is 5.0.5 and I was thinking I could just install the newest version (6.8.3) to a new usb stick and use my old license, can it be done and how?

This could be done but I have never heard of anyone actually doing it.   Personally, I would do the upgrade from version 5 first.  After getting it working, then copy the contents of the boot drive to a prepared flash drive.  Then on the first boot of that new drive you will be requested to upgrade the license.  See here for details:

 

    https://wiki.unraid.net/UnRAID_6/Changing_The_Flash_Device

 

 

Hmm... this somehow does not get into my logic and I know this is a uncommon thing to do for you people being current with your OS.

 

I understand the upgrading when you just want to upgrade the OS on the same usb and have a working setup, but when all hardware is new... is it really this much work?

 

Shouldn't unRAID 6.x.x just need to understand the data on the disks? There is no flag that says the data was from under 5.0.5, it is just same data it would be under 6.x.x.?

 

 

Any "major" upgrade always has issues in anything you ever do.  My advice would be to if possible back up all your data to another disk or something and just update/refresh everything and migrate the data back once you are happy with how it is set up

 

You mean a file transfer between two separate hardware? Really?

 

35 minutes ago, CaptainSpalding said:

You mean a file transfer between two separate hardware? Really?

Of course, you should always have good (enough) backups at all times.

 

But V6 will read (and write) your V5 disks. Your data should be fine, none of your plugins from V5 can be used. Just study the wiki linked earlier and ask if you have any questions.

 

One thing you might consider, though, is your V5 disks are ReiserFS. Not recommended going forward, and you will ultimately want to reformat to another filesystem, XFS is the usual for the array. So, you will have to come up with a way to empty each disk so you can reformat it. If you have enough free space you can shuffle data from one disk to other disks so you can reformat it, rinse, repeat. Or you can add a disk to get additional free space.

Now I think I understand the problem.

 

If the format for the disks is different then of course I need to make this the hard way.

 

I am putting new disk in the new setup, so then I will just preclear them and start the transfer when it is done. 

 

Just wanted to make shure that I need a lot of time for this when it is done this way.

 

What does this XFS do more over ReiserFX?

 

 

 

5 minutes ago, CaptainSpalding said:

What does this XFS do more over ReiserFX?

The development of the ReiserFS ceased in about 2009 when the developer was sentenced to prison for murdering his wife.  The problem which has risen since that time has to do with the increased capacity of modern hard disks.  The file allocation time becomes increasing longer as the larger capacity disk fills up.  You can continue to use it but be aware but you may well have problems in the future. 

Ok, thank you for this info!

 

Seems I got into unRAID at the same year. :)

 

How about this sas vs sata? I was thinking of putting 4x12Tb includin parity to the new system. Those I can all connect to sas, but would it be faster to put parity to a sata and data drives to sas?

43 minutes ago, CaptainSpalding said:

How about this sas vs sata? I was thinking of putting 4x12Tb includin parity to the new system. Those I can all connect to sas, but would it be faster to put parity to a sata and data drives to sas?

This is an area in which I have no expertise.  Pinging @JorgeB 

I don't think SAS vs SATA will make much of a difference with Unraid, more important is the disk platter size, i.e., more recent disks with a higher areal density will likely be generally faster.