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...
- 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?)
- 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.
- 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?
- Of the 2, which upgrade comes with highest risk of 'bricking'?