Migrate from MySql 5.0.51 to MariaDB 10.x using XtraBackup

I’m a bit of a newb on this particular topic, but I’m using this old MySQL on AWS and need/want to migrate to the latest MariaDB and make use of compressed rows. I have a really large DB, 90gb and it takes hours to dump and a day to load in my current test, which I don’t want to have my system down for that long. I read something in the docs that lead me to think I could do kind of a sync backup between the two so I could basically migrate live and then quite the DB to move it when it is done. I could use a little help with finding the commands and verify this is possible. Thank you.

When you say on AWS are you using it on EC2 or RDS, it sounds like it is running on your server on EC2.
My strategy was to find the highest version from where I was to migrate to and then make a slave and upgrade the slave and role swap this means you can test and check a lot of things before upgrading the real thing. Stabilise it on your newer version and go do it again.
If you are on 5.1 you can get to 5.7 in two hops or get to MariaDB 10.1 using the same strategy and I think two hops from MySQL to latest MariaDB on 10.1