Exchange front end server configured without raid
Hey guy's
I just noticed that our exchange front server is installed on a drive that has no protection. This server has no raid controller and i am afraid that if anything happens to the system drive then i will not be boot up the system.
Any suggestion that what here i can do to protect my exchange...Its 2010 on 2008r2
Thanks
Jas
I just noticed that our exchange front server is installed on a drive that has no protection. This server has no raid controller and i am afraid that if anything happens to the system drive then i will not be boot up the system.
Any suggestion that what here i can do to protect my exchange...Its 2010 on 2008r2
Thanks
Jas
ASKER
My ANOTHER QUESTION
Can i do software raid in drive management (Mirror)while its running..Hope it will format the system drive
Can i just convert it into the vm and save the vm files somewhere so that if the physical box fails in the future..i shuld be able to run the vm
Can i do software raid in drive management (Mirror)while its running..Hope it will format the system drive
Can i just convert it into the vm and save the vm files somewhere so that if the physical box fails in the future..i shuld be able to run the vm
1. shut system down.
2. install another HDD >= capacity of the one you have.
3. boot
4. convert the C:\ to dynamic disk (this is done hot, takes less than a minute)
5. Convert the C:\ disk to a mirror using the 2nd drive, also done hot, using native software mirroring. Will take hours or all day depending on how big the HDD is, but it works in background.
6. then at your convenience, reboot, to to bios, and put the 2nd HDD as the 2nd drive in boot path. This protects against primary drive failure.
Lots of videos on youtube to walk you through , look for converting to dynamic disk raid
Best practice is to do full backup & scandisk to check for filesytem problems first.
Obviously make 100% sure that you are mirroring the NEW drive so it matches the existing one, and not the other way around. Windows will warn you to make sure, but it doesn't care if you choose the wrong disk as source and target ... until the o/s crashes because you blew it away.
2. install another HDD >= capacity of the one you have.
3. boot
4. convert the C:\ to dynamic disk (this is done hot, takes less than a minute)
5. Convert the C:\ disk to a mirror using the 2nd drive, also done hot, using native software mirroring. Will take hours or all day depending on how big the HDD is, but it works in background.
6. then at your convenience, reboot, to to bios, and put the 2nd HDD as the 2nd drive in boot path. This protects against primary drive failure.
Lots of videos on youtube to walk you through , look for converting to dynamic disk raid
Best practice is to do full backup & scandisk to check for filesytem problems first.
Obviously make 100% sure that you are mirroring the NEW drive so it matches the existing one, and not the other way around. Windows will warn you to make sure, but it doesn't care if you choose the wrong disk as source and target ... until the o/s crashes because you blew it away.
VM Snapshot for exchange is not recommended as it is a live db. So, best solution is to setup new hardware and new Exchange server and move over the mailboxes to new server. Or you can also create DAG with second server, that will provide you the redundancy of db and in case one server fails, you have second server online. however you need enterprise windows license key.
ASKER
amit: i am talking about front end server ,i got two back end server where mailboxes are .So there are no db on this front end ...
What roles are installed on this server?
ASKER
It has CAS role installed
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http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/exchange/bb204080(v=exchg.140).aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/exchange/aa579284(v=exchg.140).aspx