Windows version 3CX upgrade from V16 to V18 requires uninstalling V16 version and reinstalling the V18 3CX.
3CX describes in the documentation how to upgrade to version V18:
- Login to the Management console and go to “Backup and Restore”.
- Take a full backup configuration (incl. Vmails and Recordings) for safety precautions.
- Uninstall 3CXPhoneSystem V16.
- Install 3CXPhoneSystem V18. Download the latest version from your Customer portal account.
- Restore backup.
- Wait until the installation is complete.
You can see that we need to do a full backup and restore the backup.
But if our 3CX is deployed in the cloud, such as AWS, google cloud, Azure. And the recording files take up more than half of the hard disk space, there is no way to do a full backup, because the space is not enough.
So in this case, how should I upgrade my PBX to V18?
I’d suggest creating a new drive in Windows which will serve as the Recordings storage. Copy the recordings from your 3CX PBX recordings location to the new drive’s recordings folder (e.g D:\Recordings).
Once confirmed that they’re copied over, take a backup of the PBX without recordings. Once completed, delete the recordings from the primary drive.
Uninstall the v16 PBX, download and install the v18 PBX using your backup. Once installed, in the Management Console, navigate to Recordings and set the location to the D:\Recordings folder where you copied the recordings to.