So my server went down....

The other weekend my unraid box still running 5.x dropped off my network. I spent an hour trying to hook up a monitor to it and get a signal but couldn't. The box turns on, fans spin up but can't get any reaction from it beyond that. Cleared the bios, restarted a bunch, removed all but one memory module... typical troubleshooting tactics but it wont' post.

My config has 12 drives in it running off the motherboard's sata ports (Biostar TA760G M2+ & Sempron 140 CPU) and two promise controllers. The options I have are to:

[*]Tear the thing apart and see if I can get it to post out of the case with minimal hardware and rebuild, if so.

[*]Start a "new" build with better hardware I've had lying around for a year. (Asus P9X79, Core i7 3820)

It seems as though this would be the time to swap out hardware and move to unraid 6 but my primary concern of course is ensuring no data loss during the process. I've been watching Unraid 6 from afar and recall mentions of new file systems and with all the added flexibility of visualization, some extra thought needs to be given to the setup. 

Suggestions on how to best proceed?

Edit: I just saw this thread http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=44235.0 that confirms what I remember... in theory I can plug existing drives into the new build.

I have a question about visualization: is there any benefit to using docker to run apps/services off unraid vs just installing Windows 10 on the box and running everything there? 

Just swap the drives in to the new machine, fire it up on your existing UnRAID install.  Once it's happy, upgrade to 6. 

Docker works great on UnRAID.  Just install the Community Applications plugin, which makes installing Dockers simple.

Having done something similar, my recommendation is to do one thing at a time.  Get completely stable on new hardware under v5, then upgrade to v6.  If you can throw in some experimentation on v6 prior to your main array migration, all the better.  It's well worth upgrading, by the way - you'll love it.

That's great, thanks for the input. I hope to carve out some time today to do the hardware migration. Thanks for the tip on the Community Applications plugin. I have a *really old* testbed I've been trying to get v6 on to play with but it's giving me grief just trying to boot from USB anymore. I'll have to get that working first.

When upgrading to 6, is it really an "upgrade" process? There's a part of me that kinda wants to start from scratch for things other than the array config.

I guess to re-frame my question, if I were to toy with spinning up a VM for Windows, I'm torn between installing things like Plex or CrashPlan on unraid vs within Windows. Of course the latter being more familiar, but being intrigued by docker. With the latter I'd have to wait for unraid to boot, then Windows, so that's a drawback. I suppose I'll lean to exploring the docker route first and leave a Windows install just for experimentation right now.

I think you'll find Dockers lightweight, super convenient, and generally easier to setup than VMs.  The only hard part is setting up the path definitions, but that's not bad at all.  I'd recommend trying the associated Dockers before trying VMs.

There's a v5 plugin to help you upgrade from v5 to v6, you can lookup information on it.  I did a "clean" upgrade before the plugin was available so I can't help you with direct experiences.  The unRAID portion of the upgrade is simple, but plugins require some planning.  Since most v5 plugins either need to be upgraded to 64bit or preferably replaced with Dockers you want to be selective if you upgrade.

Be sure that you read this WIKI:

    http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Upgrading_to_UnRAID_v6

and look at this thread:

    http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=39032.0

This thread was really not kept up to date but the information will definitely get you started down the right path.  The upgrade WIKI is long and some what complex as it addresses virtually every issue (not matter how unlikely) that anyone ever encountered doing the upgrade.