Old System Want to Upgrade What Order?


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Hi I have an old system unRaid 5.0.6 and it's getting to be a mess.  Slow wonky hardware, lost a parity disk, unRaid OS is way old and running on a 1GB thumb drive.

The cpu is an old 64 bit AMD, not sure of the exact architecture.  When all is settled I want the following:

  • Valid Parity
  • Running latest unRaid OS
  • Running off a bigger newer thumb drive
  • Running on new hardware (Old disks are fine just want new Mobo, CPU, Ram, use a Cache Disk)

 

I use my machine as a dumping ground for my media, I'd like to get enough hardware to run some containers down the road if I want to (maybe plex and a windows VM).  But I don't see myself trans coding or playing games on the machine.


What order should I do my upgrades in?  I assume that I need to get parity immediately, and have a replacement disk ordered.  

 

Also when I upgrade to unRaid 6 can I start with a fresh install of the latest version, without loosing my data?  If I have to reconfigure my shares and such that's fine with me.  I like starting fresh if its possible to do without loosing my data.  

Or do I just have to follow the plugin and install outlined here?

 

Edited by cobolstinks
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13 minutes ago, cobolstinks said:

Can v6 run on a 1GB thumb drive? 

Yes, but it could get tight depending on what customizations you do. 3 of my servers are around 500-700MB used on the flash, 1 is 1300MB. Honestly I don't know what's taking up the extra space, it's a 16GB drive so I never bothered looking. I'm betting it's stuff that's unnecessary, but it's not worth my time to investigate.

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21 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

Yes, but it could get tight depending on what customizations you do. 3 of my servers are around 500-700MB used on the flash, 1 is 1300MB. Honestly I don't know what's taking up the extra space, it's a 16GB drive so I never bothered looking. I'm betting it's stuff that's unnecessary, but it's not worth my time to investigate.

The only customization I have is a menu plugin but that goes away if I update to v6.  I want to upgrade to a better thumb drive anyways as my current one sticks out and has been bumped and is janky.  

My understanding is that to replace the thumb drive in v6 is easier than v5.  There are buttons in the GUI in v6 I think to help you swap usb drives.  

So maybe my order of march should be 

  • restore parity (disk arrives wednesday)
  • update OS to v6
  • swap thumbdrives
  • swap hardware

 

Likely with work and family stuff there will be several days if not weeks between each of these steps so hopefully I'll have sufficient time to detect if any of these updates caused issues.  

Any glaring red flags here?


It's pretty awesome that this server has been running unimpeded for so long, speaks to the quality of the software and systems limetech has created here.  Thanks!

 

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4 minutes ago, cobolstinks said:

I want to upgrade to a better thumb drive anyways as my current one sticks out and has been bumped and is janky.  

You need to relocate the flash inside the case, many of the super small sticks have a very poor endurance record.

 

Get a cheap adapter that plugs into the motherboard 10 pin USB connection and has a port at the end of a short cable, then tape the stick to the inside of the case.

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Ok new drive arrived, I installed and I think i rebuilt parity.  I say I think because after it rebuilt parity I ran a check and the web GUI became unresponsive after 92%.  The gui doesn't load now, but the unmenu GUI does load and looks fine.  The GUI screen shot and syslog is attached. 

 

My question now is should I work on upgrading to unRaid 6.x from this point or do I need to figure out why the stock UI won't load on me?  If I power cycle it and don't do a parity check, or cancel the parity check before it completes the UI is fine.... Also even when I can't get into the stock UI the console will respond to commands.

 

Screen Shot 2020-11-21 at 8.40.20 AM.png

syslog-2020-11-21.txt

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I know the reference to the Upgrade WIKI was posted earlier in this thread but I want to take a moment to point to the 'simple' guide that was written for folks with a simple Unraid  NAS:

 

       https://forums.unraid.net/topic/37354-upgrading-unraid-from-version-5-to-version-6/

 

Near the bottom of the first post, you will find a link to a PDF file of the basic instruction for folks with simple NAS setups.   The WIKI includes solutions to virtually every problem which folks encountered in doing the upgrade.  Read the PDF first!   Remember to make that backup of the Flash Drive before you start to do anything!!!!   (If you do it, you will never need it!   😏 )

 

I just downloaded and unzipped the latest stable version (6.8.3) of Unraid and it is 214MB in size so it will fit on your 1GB flash drive without an issue.  You can do the version upgrade without worrying about the flash drive.  After you have version 6 running, you can then upgrade the flash drive using the automatic process that LimeTech now provides. 

 

It has now been five plus years since version 6 came out and most of us have moved on from Version 5 long ago so  getting answers on why something is not working now will be difficult.  From what I see, your Parity is valid so your data is safe at this point.  So you can safely do the upgrade without a worry of data loss.

 

To upgrade to a simple version 6 NAS only setup, should only take three to four hours at the max as I recall-- including the reading and research.  (If you have a lot of plugins all of those will have to reinstalled from scratch.  I would suggest that you use DOCKER's rather than plugins wherever possible!)

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Rather than using a internal USB plug, you might want to consider the use of a short USB extender cable (note, I did not say USB cable), tape the female end to the side of the case and plug the flash drive into that.  That eliminates the flash drive sticking out and keeps it cooler which will extend its life.  (Antecedent evidence seems to suggest that full size flash drives with of small capacity (today, say, 8GB) have longer life than smaller, larger capacity flash drives.)  And always buy that flash drive from a manufacturer who actually makes their own drives. 

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4 hours ago, Frank1940 said:

I know the reference to the Upgrade WIKI was posted earlier in this thread but I want to take a moment to point to the 'simple' guide that was written for folks with a simple Unraid  NAS:

 

       https://forums.unraid.net/topic/37354-upgrading-unraid-from-version-5-to-version-6/

 

Near the bottom of the first post, you will find a link to a PDF file of the basic instruction for folks with simple NAS setups.   The WIKI includes solutions to virtually every problem which folks encountered in doing the upgrade.  Read the PDF first!   Remember to make that backup of the Flash Drive before you start to do anything!!!!   (If you do it, you will never need it!   😏 )

 

I just downloaded and unzipped the latest stable version (6.8.3) of Unraid and it is 214MB in size so it will fit on your 1GB flash drive without an issue.  You can do the version upgrade without worrying about the flash drive.  After you have version 6 running, you can then upgrade the flash drive using the automatic process that LimeTech now provides. 

 

It has now been five plus years since version 6 came out and most of us have moved on from Version 5 long ago so  getting answers on why something is not working now will be difficult.  From what I see, your Parity is valid so your data is safe at this point.  So you can safely do the upgrade without a worry of data loss.

 

To upgrade to a simple version 6 NAS only setup, should only take three to four hours at the max as I recall-- including the reading and research.  (If you have a lot of plugins all of those will have to reinstalled from scratch.  I would suggest that you use DOCKER's rather than plugins wherever possible!)

Thanks for the info crossing my fingers and starting the software upgrade now.

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6 minutes ago, cobolstinks said:

Upgrade is done, parity check is running.  Pretty smooth process.  I should have upgraded long ago.  For some reason unrated d is only detecting 4 of my 6gb ram though.

After the parity check is completed, go to   TOOLS   >>>   Diagnostics  and upload the resulting file in a new post. 

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