# Major upgrade -- best practices?

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/major-upgrade-best-practices/380545>\
**Category:** Self-hosting\
**Created:** [August 27, 2025, 3:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/major-upgrade-best-practices/380545 "2025-08-27T15:35:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 4

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**Author:** ![Ed\_S](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/ed_s/32/134015_2.png) [@Ed\_S](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Ed_S)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2025, 3:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/major-upgrade-best-practices/380545/4 "2025-08-28T15:56:03Z")

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> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> spin up a new server, [Move a Discourse site to another VPS with rsync](https://meta.discourse.org/t/move-a-discourse-site-to-another-vps-with-rsync/43812) (I’d skip the database files), and restore a backup

This has some good side-effects, of ensuring you have a recent backup and you have a safe copy of that backup. You do need to do those things, however you approach your upgrade.

I get the impression it would be good practice to comment out all your plugins too, but it would be good for someone to confirm that.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/major-upgrade-best-practices/380545)._