Dell PowerEdge R720 In-place upgrade of a physical server

[Max Coder]

Hi,

I'd like you assistance with the title. In brief I have  Dell PowerEdge R720 physical host running 2012 r2 that need to be upgraded and
buying new hardware is out of the picture.

I will migrate 2012R2 to 2016 Os.

I am using Veeam Backup.

Directly connected to FC storage.

1 - what rollback measures I could take for physical servers?

2 -  Is a firmware upgrade necessary before upgrading the OS?

Any recommendations? Thanks

[Bruce Roberts]

You mention many things - is your Veeam Backup a complete bare metal full backup of the entire machine, OS, system state, and all drives? Could you restore this entire physical server if say the motherboard failed?

With FC storage - do you also have any other servers which act as a hypervisor VMware or Hyper-V?  Using a process for P2V migration of this server could provide you a safety net of anything going wrong with the in-place upgrade.
This said i have done many 2012R2 to 2016 in-place upgrades - but I've always had a solid recovery in place if something failed - for me this is P2V and full VM backups from a hypervisor. 

Do you know if the physical server supports your new OS for any system drivers - the Microsoft HCL hardware compatibility list is a nice place to get official confirmation about supported OS for hardware. 

Can you test your Veeam Backup to perform a full restore on a separate but identical Dell R720 host?

How important is this server to your organization - what would your full rebuild steps be if the in-place upgrade failed or was non-bootable? I would not comfortably rely on any OS upgrade roll back to protect you for this upgrade.

Good Luck,

Bruce

[Philip Elder]

Fleabay is your best friend.

 

Source the highest processor set (Stepping Must Match if there is two or if dropping in a pair).

Source the largest memory sticks to fill all of the primary channels.

Source at least two Dell, or SAN branded, and preferably firmware identical, drives to sit on a shelf.

 

If you’re comfortable, little “r” me the service tag and I’ll get you the part numbers.

 

Can you do a newer operating system for the host and guests? Windows Server 2019 or 2022?

 

Philip Elder MCTS

Senior Technical Architect

Microsoft High Availability MVP

MPECS Inc.

E-mail: Phili...@mpecsinc.ca

Phone: +1 (780) 458-2028

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[Eric W]

Oof. Is this the only server? Is anything virtualized? Upgrading to 2016 is a terrible idea since its mainstream support has ended. Hell, even server 2019 is outside mainstream support at this point. Firmware updates, IMO are a good idea. Some people only update if they see problems that are addressed with the updates. The r720 is old enough that it probably hasn’t gotten any updates in years. 

Sent from Der Isenphonen

On Jul 22, 2025, at 10:15 AM, Max Coder <maxc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

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[Glen]

When I did server os updates, first thing, disaster recovery plan in case the new os don't like the hardware.  Never needed to use it, but I slept better knowing I could go back.

Second, update bios, idrac, nic, perc and any other firmware that was out of date.
Then fresh install of new os if at all possible. I never liked in place os upgrades.
Test everything I can, then reconfigure roles as needed.
Test more and when happy, return to production.

Never had any problems following this plan and we used Dell servers longer than planned with unsupported (by Dell) os and saved several $.
But a newer used server might also be a good path. 
I just setup a home lab Dell 730xd with 2 x 28 core processors,  128gig ram, 4 x 500 gig sas drives. $210 off the bay.  Runs proxmox great.

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Virginia's Community Colleges Alumni

[Wright, John M]

I’d add that in-place upgrades can be a bit dicey.  I did one on a VM a year or two ago, and it didn’t go well.  In the end, I spun up another VM and did a fresh install/migration.

 

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