Upgrading to B+, what to do?

[Bosse_B]

I have a Pi B with the original 256 MB RAM.
It runs Raspbmc and XBMC 13.2, self updated to the latest versions a week or so ago.

Now I am considering getting a B+ to get more RAM plus the nicer features of the B+, but I don't like to have to do all the setup stuff I already did for the current unit.
So what can I do to get this switch work as painless as possible?
Can I just move the SD-card from the old to the new Pi and it will work, or is there something else to do as well or instead?

[rpdom]

If you are running the latest versions, and your SD card is a Micro card (in an adaptor for use on the B), then it should work fine.

[Bosse_B]

Gosh, I did not think about the SD size difference...
But if I make a disk image from the current SD card and write this to a micro SD card (using the same utility I used to transfer the original setup disk image to the SD card), would it work painlessly?

I just realized that the new Pi probably has a different ID so the MPEG2 license probably needs to be exchanged for a new one.

If I do this switch will there be a noticeable improvement in performance when playing video?
The current installation has issues when playing on-line material (stutters and such) even though I have a 100 Mbit/s Internet conection all the way to the Pi.

[DougieLawson]

The B and the B+ have identical processors, identical USB/LAN chips and identical RAM. All things being equal (no overclocking) the performance should be identical.

Most of the B to B+ changes were to iron out the hardware bugs and power starvation problems.

[rpdom]

I doubt you will notice any improvement when playing videos, even with the memory increase. The RAM isn't a bottleneck unless you have a lot of other things going on at the same time.

[Bosse_B]

Thanks for the clarification!

I currently have 3 Pi:s used as follows:
- Pi B 256 MB: used as XMBC media player in the living room
- Pi B 512 MB: used as VPN server to access my LAN when traveling
- Pi B+: located as a VPN server at my daughter's home in the USA so I can access her LAN

Now I was hoping that at least adding the extra RAM would improve XBMC performance (more room for look-ahead caching of the video stream for example). But I am not doing a lot else with it, normally it is just idling doing nothing. Then I could show some videos for my grandchildren or watch a play channel myself. That is all.
Have not bought it yet though....