I can't seem to find much info on this so thought I'd ask.
First is it worth upgrading a Digital Ocean forge 14.04 server to 16.04?
Secondly if I did I'd like to avoid as much down time as possible. Is it better to upgrade the one I have or provision a new server?
Id say its worth it. 16.04 comes with php7 which gives you a lot of performance improvements. One downside is it also comes with mysql 5.7 which seems to have a lot of issues. It completely froze up my servers and I had to switch to MariaDB.
Some things to consider before you do this:
Is you application php7 compatible? Make sure sure to test it in your dev environment first.
Can you easily change to MariaDB or something if you use mysql? Generally you can do it very easily, but in some cases, like if you use a different engine, it can get a little more complicated. Again, test this in dev first.
I would provision a new server. Upgrading Ubuntu is usually safe, but occasionally it gets screwed up big time. Much safer to provision a new server, set up your site, and then change the registry in the Digital Ocean control panel.
If you're already using php7 in 14.04, then there really isnt much point in upgrading now I guess. 14.04 is supported until spring 2018 so you still have a couple years before you have to do anything. May as well wait until the next long term support release, 18.04, comes out in 2018.
@zachleigh awesome thanks. I'll just stick with 14.04 then. Saves a lot of hassle and if there's no real speed / security benefit I'll save myself the hassle :)
