Hi,

I have been merrily upgrading RouterOS versions for 9 months, and had not noticed that upgrading the OS does not automatically upgrade the firmware... While this is a home network, I work from home, so my strategy for upgrades tends to be a risk calculation based on lot of "if it isn't broken, don't try to fix it" and "if the worst happens, do I have time for a scary Netinstall & reconfig today?", vs a bit of "stay current" and "get the new features". So for example on my main CCR1009 Router I am currently on RouterOS 7.2.3 but Firmware 6.46.4

So my questions are...

1. Where does keeping Firmware and RouterOS versions in sync play into the risk vs reward calculation? (is it good practice to keep them synced, or doesn't it matter so much?)
2. How can I see whether a change in a new release impacts 'Firmware' vs ' OS'? - I see categories like 'RouterBoot' and 'System' in release notes (which I might assume are firmware related), but as a newbie I don't have a very clear insight to whether a change is dependent on RouterBoard firmware upgrade or whether it only needs a RouterOS package update.
3. Would you advise a significant delay "OS looks stable, now upgrade Firmware" - or is it relatively safe to do both one directly after the other?
4. Of the 2, which upgrade comes with highest risk of 'bricking'?

Thanks!

In the old days, firmware had a separate revision number and it would propose to update it only when that had changed in the RouterOS image.
So you could be running e.g. RouterOS 6.40 and firmware 3.23
Sometimes when you asked someone "what version RouterOS are you running?" they would find the "firmware version" and reply with like "3.22" and you knew it was the wrong version and had to ask again.

But at some point that was all destroyed by giving firmware the same version number as RouterOS. Now, when they reply "6.46.4" you still know nothing, they could be running RouterOS 7.2.3 in reality.
What that was good for, I don't know. Questions about it are not answered in a meaningful way, and it does not look like this decision will ever be reverted.

Thank you both! I understand a bit more, but seems like "its this way 'because it is'", so I will be sure to consult my Magic 8 ball and read some tea leaves before each upgrade decision