SBS 2008 Standard to New Hardware/Server

Use this tool and save time

http://www.doubletake.com/english/products/double-take-move/Pages/default.aspx

Can't seem to find the price. How much is it? If it's not too expensive I'll go for it. I am trying to save on cost since my budget is pretty tight.

https://buy.doubletake.com/

Is there a free way of doing this?

Anyone? I need to do the move this weekend.

The bottleneck is most certainly disk.  Run perfmon (you have it already) to verify.   As those disks age they have more unreadable blocks; chew up the reserved spares; and you could very well be having a huge amount of recovered errors that don't get reported .. hurt performance.

The disks are certainly out of warranty as well.

If queue depth is consistently > 2, then that is the proof  you need.

Run the built in back and just restore to the new box.
Built in back up will allow you to move to different hardware .

By the way - you mentioned you had RAID, but you didn't mention what server specifications you had...?  RAM?  CPU/Cores?  Your company may have just wasted money unnecessarily on a new server (well, it WAS out of warranty, so I'd have probably recommended it anyway, but knowing what your bottleneck was first is incredibly important to ensure the new server works well and doesn't have similar problems.

Restoring using the built in backup should be a relative no brainer.

M$ did get that portion of the backup right.

However,in the long run,because of the issue of the built in backup not supporting 4k USB disks,a good third party would be a wise decision.

I just realized I have EASEUS Todo Backup Advanced Server. I am going to try that to move SBS over to the new hardware.

The new server specs are:

Intel Xeon E5-2407 Processor 2.20GHz, 10M Cache, 6.4GT/s QPI, No Turbo, 4C, 80W
12GB DDR3 10600 EEC Unbuffered RAM
RAID5 with 4 500GB 6GB/s 64MB Cache HDs
SBS 2008 Standard Retail

It'll be used on a network with 5 stations, Exchange and File Server.

If EASEUS fails, do I install a fresh copy of SBS 2008 on the new server and then run a restore, or do I do a Bare Metal Backup and Restore?

I fully agree with Jeff (TechSoEasy).
In addition to the document Jeff linked to,   The Technet Library includes a step by step for this process
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc664208(v=ws.10).aspx

I think you would be better off with 16 gigs of RAM.

I also agree that this would have been the time to migrate to SBS 2011.  SBS 2008 is no longer in mainstream support by Microsoft, while SBS 2011 will be in mainstream support for another couple years.

The reason the company decided to stay with SBS 2008 is to cut down on cost and since SBS 2008 meets all of their requirements.

I will follow Jeff's suggestion and post an update after this weekend.

I just found out that Exchange Server is installed on a second partition on the server, not on the C drive. How can I move exchange to the new server when its on a partition other than the OS partition?

Following the instructions on the technet document is all that's required
Doesn't matter where Exchange is installed.  Most likely all that's on the other partition is the actual mailbox databases, not the program itself

Understand that you are not copying your current server installation over to a new machine... instead you are performing a migration.  

As the official documentation states:

"This guide tells you how to migrate an existing Windows SBS 2008 domain to Windows SBS 2008 and then to migrate the settings and data. This guide also tells you how to remove your existing server from the Windows SBS 2008 network after you finish the migration.

Important
To avoid problems while migrating your existing server to Windows SBS 2008, it is recommended that you read this document before you begin the migration."

Please do read through the guide so you will have a better understanding of the process.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

The migration did not happen this weekend. It's been postponed till next weekend. I will follow the migration document to migrate the server next weekend and post the results.

Thanks all for your advice!

I took the advice and did a complete system restore from my latest full backup. The restore was completed successfully, but the Active Directory is not available. I get a message that the AD does not exist. Any ideas?

Assuming you were using the built-in SBS Backup, please see this article about issues related to restoring the system state:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2008/10/13/system-state-backups-and-sbs-2008.aspx

Jeff
TechSoEasy

I actually had to manually copy all the info from the old server, including emails, today, Took me a bit longer, but got the job done.

I did notice one thing though, when i bought the old server back to my office and turned it on it gave me the exact same message "Active Directory is not available'. Does SBS 2008 (not r2) need to be connected to the internet for the AD to work?

No

Than why is it as soon as I unplugged the old server from the switch it gave me the AD could not be found error?

Well, Active Directory has nothing at all to do with the Internet -- which is what you asked last.

There is no way for me to know why you are getting an error now with the information provided by you.  Since that question is significantly different from your original one, I would ask that you post a new question rather than trailing on this one.  You need to close this one out if your primary issue is resolved.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

I've requested that this question be deleted for the following reason:

the question was not answered.

Seriously?  How was it not answered?  You asked how to move SBS 2008 Standard to New Hardware/Server -- and were provided with the correct answer.

The fact that you were not successful in following the documented instructions is no reason to delete the question.

I suggest the points be split amongst all experts that provided options to resolve the request.

Had the asker done as recommended either by http:Q_27996734.html#a38785801 or http:Q_27996734.html#a38785991 he would have been successful.

Instead, he tried to do a restore in a live-state situation which caused his AD to be out of sync and non-responsive.

While the other expert comments were on-topic, they didn't address the specific need of moving SBS 2008 to new hardware -- which is a documented process that Microsoft supports as long as the process is followed.