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backup and restore server on new, larger drives?
Faced with the fix or replace scenario, customer wants to replace the overloaded C drives with larger ones (this is a mirrored raid config, two drives) (yes I have done everything to give them more space, but we are just out at this point) I think this makes sense only if we can back up and restore to the new drives, as reinstalling everything would be too expensive. Is it possible to do this? Current drives are 36gig, new drives would be " Hard Drive,146G,S,10K,1IN,80P Lead Free,Seagate". Looking for product needed, or could we use the included backup or shareware to do this. Please advise. This is a Dell Poweredge 2800 from 2006. Believe it has the Perc 4/Di Raid controller, also has a RAID-5 array for the Data drives.. So we did Raid-1/Raid5 combo back then.. I should also mention this is running SBS 2003 original version, not the R-2. An additional quiteston would be if R2 was a free upgrade, or a paid one?
THanks,
Dave
THanks,
Dave
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I should mention that Dell is offering 146 gig drives as the largest that can be used in this system, and they cannot guarantee whether they would be new or "refurbished"... Makes me nervous. Any place else to buy proper equipment that is new and would work in this sever?
Looks like a good solution for problem #1, but quite expensive for a 1 time deal (although cheaper than all the man-hours it would take to do it the other way!) That is a partial, any other ideas? If I could find it cheaper I would buy it myself and use on multiple sites, but I do this rarely...
Hi,
Norton Ghost is cheaper and will also do the job.
If you want something really cheap try [Reference to a well-known Boot CD Removed], but I'm not sure it is completely legal.
//zaZagor
Norton Ghost is cheaper and will also do the job.
If you want something really cheap try [Reference to a well-known Boot CD Removed], but I'm not sure it is completely legal.
//zaZagor
Since it is hardware RAID and the OS views it as a single drive, you could use a open source or commercial imaging solution to image the existing OS to an external drive, replace the drives & setup your new array, then push the image back to the new hard drives. Open Source: clonezilla / Commercial (paid) Acronis
lancecurwensville: I should mention, there is a C: and D: drive involved here (as the OS sees it), that I would just as soon turn into a single C drive. Does this make any difference?
It won't make a difference for the imaging process but it would have to be addressed after migrating to the new drives. Once your data is all moved over and you are sure that it works, now you can address the partitioning with other tools. As this is a production server, I personally would use a product like Acronis Disk Director Server Ed. however, there are open source tools out there such as Gparted http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ however, again, I would prefer a commercial version that comes with support.
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ShadowProtect makes this task easy. Boot from a ShadowProtect disk, take an image of the volume to be replaced, replace the drives with bigger ones, go in to the RAID controller BIOS and create your new RAID mirror, boot up ShadowProtect again, create a partition on the new volume, format it, restore your ShadowProetct image to that partition, make sure it is active (if it's the C drive). Boot up and go back to work. It really is that easy.
Regards,
David