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Replacing current file server with new hardware - Keeping name and copying files

I have an old Dell file server that I will be replacing with a new dell file server in a few weeks. the current file server is on a Windows 2003 server while the new one will be running Windows 2008. I was planning on using robocopy to copy all the folders and files (about 800GB) during planned downtime and after a full backup. I would like to keep the server name, IP address and share names the same for an easy transition for the users....Should I just bring the new server up with a different server name and IP, transfer all the files, power down the old box and rename/reIP the new one to match the old one(after removing the old one from the domain)? Is there a better way?

aleghart

That's what I've done. Make sure you manually update or double-check DNS. Also perform tests from computers to make sure the IP address isn't going to the old MAC address, and giving you the old server.

For safety's sake, I renamed the "DATA" share to something else. Unsharing it would kill the custom permissions...if we needed to look it up later, we wanted that to be there. Also, renamed the folder so that UNC paths or shortcuts wouldn't work, especially the ones using administrative paths, like \\SERVER\D$\DATA

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Leon Fester

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