Hello,
We are going to purchase a Netgate 7100 1U to replace our UDM Pro. My question is if we purchase a backup (say a 6100 for example), when I make a backup of the settings, can I restore the setting from one to another? My only thing is that maybe the port(s) won’t match up.
I’d bet the Netgate Device ID is different, no idea if this will stop a restore. Obviously, you can test it out once you get the boxes in.
If you have the devices anyway, you could always set up high availability.
You can edit the config file to change ports if need be before restoring to the back up device. A pretty simple thing to do and Tom made a video on this somewhere (part of another video).
Thanks! I didn’t know about that video.
I found this one: Backup/Restore pfSense Custom XML Configuration When Changing Firewall Hardware - YouTube
I liked this video to help out.
thanks again.
If you were to restore a configuration file to different hardware and there was a mismatch in the number of interfaces you would be met with a prompt to assign the interfaces. It’s pretty straight forward when you see it and you can easily test it with two virtual machines running pfSense before making a purchase. Also, if the pfSense versions are different it may be possible that you are restoring settings that don’t exist (a new feature that doesn’t exist on an older box for example). Remember that restoring a backup is just changing settings on the box so the device ID shouldn’t be an issue.
That said, I would just spend the extra couple hundred dollars to get two of the same machines and run them in HA mode, or at least have them both on, maybe one production and the other test. Never having downtime will more than pay for itself if this is for a business. It’s not a good day when you find your cold spare is a dud.
Here is the official documentation which conveniently doesn’t mention anything in relation to your question but has a lot of other good stuff 
Backup and Recovery — Restoring from Backups | pfSense Documentation
OK. So I am going back to Netgate for a new quote and they stated that to get HA Mode I need to add the expansion card. I am trying to find something that would tell me how that works? Is this expansion card esentially another 7100? Maybe I am just confused?
you might want to have a look at this
Ahh…thanks! I will take a look
Thanks for this question.
I am planning to upgrade my home router to a Netgate 6100 from a pfSense CE system, but I plan to keep the older hardware around for backup.
It looks like the upgrade will be fine allowing for needing to change the Interface configuration. However, it looks like I might need to be careful with the version used if I want to retain the ability to use the older device.
An alternative will be to accept that the older device is just a backup, and keep a configuration that is enough to keep data flowing while I get a replacement for the failed device.