Upgrade vs new install

Hello,
I have been following a youtuber (technotim) and he got me using rancher(version 2.4.8) at home . I have a standalone server and a few apps running, but nothing too much. One of his tutorials is to back up and upgrade rancher and although he makes it sound and look easy I am finding it a little confusing and difficult. Also Tim’s original video was a few months ago and it looks like things may have changed or I still don’t understand that much. On top of Tim’s video’s I also look at rancher documentation and if I am reading it correctly for my situation it is recommended to upgrade helm first, but finding it hard to find documentation on exactly how to do that. Also in finding this forum and github I have read some issues with upgrading (2.4.8 → 2.5.5) which is turning me off a little. Since my situation is unique as I only have a few standalone apps (Papermerge, pihole, guacamole, heimdall and radar) my thought is to make sure I configure all these apps to point to my freenas server as storage and make sure the configs / data folder is backed up on each app. From there I should be able to spin up a new linux server, and have a fresh docker and rancher(V2.5.5) install and slowly migrate my apps. Again, I don’t think this is what rancher was intended for and should be a much easier process from what I have read, but with the changes and all the different options I am not sure I fully understand what I need to do exactly to do a successful upgrade. I know this reads more like a statement then a question, but I am looking for some thoughts and maybe guidance from others. Is this an ok approach? is it easier than I think it is to upgrade, and just need the right docs? is building an ha cluster in the future the best way forward?