OS v6.9.4 Upgrade - a 3x Success Story

Hi All, I have 3 ReadyNASs, all were running OS6 v6.9.3 (v6.9.0 before that) and now all are running v6.9.4. ReadyNAS Atlas: RN102, 2x 2TB RAID1 + 2TB USB local backup. ReadyNAS Barton: RN204, 4x 3TB RAID5 + 5TB USB local backup. ReadyNAS Carter: RN104, 2x 2TB RAID1 + 2TB USB local backup. No add-ons in stalled, various standard services running as per requirment. RSYNC backup jobs for all the data shares configured. The upgrade process I used is straight forward: - Kick of a data backup to the local USB drive. - Download a configuration backup via the GUI. - Check the SMART stats of each drive in the RAID. - Let the NAS get the latest image, and reboot it to complete the upgrade. - Do a few health checks, log checks, settings checks etc. - Download another configuration backup via the GUI. The process worked flawlessly for Barton and Carter. The upgrades happened and were successful. Atlas was a different story, or rather it could have been. The SMART stats told me that despite being green, one of the HDDs in the RAID was encountering unrecoverable errors. No problem, get the spare HDD and do a swapout (and I have a backup anyway). So the spare HDD was hot swapped for the failing drive, and Altas started the resync... it completed the resync a little over 6hrs later. Next, I simply restarted my upgrade process, the Altas successfully upgraded and all was OK. Overall I am happy with the process and the results, and I thought I would share them to demonstrate that ReadyNAS upgrades are not always bad. I am fully aware that this is more likely if you take precautions and do not just rush into it, and that not having (ever) any add-ons installed probably helps... and always have a current back up - it really helps to keep the stress level down. Wishing you all success :-) Ian