Reversion strategy when upgrading MySQL We are planning to upgrade from MySQL 5.6 to 8.0 and are considering disaster recovery plans. We have three separate databases within our MySQL 5.6 instance which are 200Gb, 170GB and roughly 9GB. Here are a few that come to mind. If anyone has any suggestions or comments, please let me know:


Image the VM which the MySQL instance runs on to backup the MySQL configuration files and .ibd files
Backup MySQL configuration files and .ibd/.frm files. If issues are to appear during the upgrade process we can revert the installation files via yum, install 5.6 again and copy back the configuration and .ibd/.frm files. Is this bad practice?
DO NOT DO #1 AS STATED! -- There are several vital files you have left out.  Capturing the entire mysql tree, plus my.cnf, would suffice.

And #2 is no better!

Without ibdata1, you have lost everything.