Replace hard drive with a larger one

I set up Umbrel on a Raspberry Pi 4 with a WD 500GB SSD running Plex media server and Sonarr. I am rapidly approaching my storage limit and have purchased a 5TB HDD. Can I migrate my media files over to the new drive and continue where I left off without re-downloading all the media and apps? Or would I need to reinstall Umbrel, have it auto configure to the new drive and transfer the files over?

Hi, thanks for question on migrating, unfortunately it is not yet officially supported but here’s some helpful info:

This is a good site that aggregates SSDs I’d like to recommend it’s called PCPartPicker and aggregates components for you, any larger internal SATA with a SATA adapter or external one you can plug a USB 3.0 cable into should be good I have it currently sorted by price and 2TB: https://pcpartpicker.com/products/internal-hard-drive/#t=0&A=2000000000000,22000000000000&sort=price&page=1

The one you you provided should work fine, I just like to recommend that for anyone in the market and in case you ever want to move off the HDD with slower sync time to SSD etc.

I usually recommend to start the initial blockchain download as soon as possible and to perform a fresh install, this can avoid any other errors occurring and is the most reliable way to migrate to a new storage device.

There is a way to copy the Bitcoin blockchain to avoid having to resync.

Those steps are listed here if you would like to try them: https://github.com/getumbrel/umbrel-os/issues/119

If your current setup is still running I sometimes I also like to recommend to make a note of all your Channel IDs, then close the channels on the current set up and then you can move your funds to any wallet or even send them via lightning anywhere else instantly- or manage your funds however you’d like this way while everything is still up and running.

I recommend this step if your current node is still up because when you use your 24-word seed phrase to recover on the new installation, it will close all your channels anyway and return all funds onchain and sometimes that process takes 1-2 days for all funds to return back onchain- and having all your channel IDs also makes it easier to reopen channels so you can at least make a note of those. Either of these ways I find the safest and most reliable way to recover all funds, there are steps to migrate all your offchain channels to a new node but there’s a lot that can go wrong in these scenarios if there are lots of funds involved- so it’s best to gain confidence testing that first if you have tons of channels and funds on the network.

For any other data in file storage applications you can copy all the contents from the /downloads folder where they are stored. If you have critical app data that you cannot afford to lose, you can try to recover it from the app-data directory inside your Umbrel installation. For Raspberry Pi users, you can find this directory by connecting your external drive to any Linux system and going to umbrel/app-data. Note: The above approach will not work for Lightning Node app data.

Some applications will have their various built-in backup recovery features you can utilize, as a note Core Lightning does not have a built-in backup recovery so definitely suggest closing channels and securing funds off of these node implementations beforehand.

If you have any other questions during the process please let me know, and happy to assist with anything at all! You can message me for quicker 1:1 support too via telegram https://t.me/usernameisJim or ping me @usernameisJim in the telegram group as well if you ever run into any issue.

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