Should I do a full backup before I do an update to the next version?

[pedz]

I am on TrueNAS-12.0-U8.1 and I guess there is an update to a new version which I've never done before.

I currently have about 13TB used on my system. My most precious data is backed up in the cloud but that is only about 1TB. I'm considering buying a simple 16TB external HDD and make a copy of all of my data before the update.

How solid is doing an update to a new version? This should be as vanilla as possible. I have a jail but I can shut that down before doing anything. I have one pool. Pretty simple set up.

What are the recommendations?

 

[Samuel Tai]

A full backup is always a good idea before a major version upgrade. I wrote this guide to upgrading which may help you.

Path to success for system upgrades

Path to success for system upgrades Too many folks here just blindly upgrade, and find themselves in a pickle afterwards (jails no longer working, encrypted pools not unlocking, or other nastiness). All too often, their predicaments are addressed in the upgrade's release notes, or in the Guide...

www.truenas.com

 

[Jailer]

How solid is doing an update to a new version?

Having a good backup is something that is independent of doing a system upgrade. You should always have a good functional backup of your important data regardless of what software version you are running.

Having said that, upgrading to a newer version of TrueNAS is trivial. Make a backup of your config before the upgrade and you have nothing to worry about. The upgrade process creates a new boot environment on your boot drive. If the upgrade doesn't go well you can always roll back to the previous boot environment. If that doesn't go well you can re install TrueNAS and then upload your saved config and you'll be back in up and running in no time.