File Share Migration

If you are just moving the data from one drive on a server to a larger drive on the same server you can use robocopy which will keep the NTFS permissions in tact. Then once you are complete you would only need to unshare the old locations and then share out the folders on the new larger drive.

You could just move some of the shares to the new volume and adjust the shares in the registry. If you maintain the same folder structure you just need to change the drive letter to the new volume for the shared folder there.

The shares in registry can be found here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Shares

When moving files ensure the ACLs stay intact. You could use robocopy for it with the /mir switch.

e.g. robocopy /mir d:\share e:\share

be careful with the robocopy /mir switch, if you omit the destination dir and just type e: you will delete EVERYTHING on e: that is not on the source path d:\share

Okay So Will I need to document the share permissions or will it also be already there

If you unshare and share you need to note the perms. If you adjust the registry the security remains its stored nearby in the registry. Be careful when editing there, ensure to only really change the drive letters, nothing else!

aftzerwards a REBOOT is necessary. Maybe a restart of the sever service is enough, ive not tried this yet.

@ Andreas : So Can I create a batch file with the Source & destination  details which can make it ease that copying one folder at a time.

If yes Can you please help me with the Batch script please

How many shares do you need to move? If there is only a few main shared folders its probably easier to screenshot and then recreate them after the data copy has competed.

when you type \\servername how many share show up?

At first we need to know more about the structure of the shares.

If its ONE big shre with many subfolders inside my approach is not working as the sharename will move to the nre volume, so all files of that shre need to move to the new volume and no space on the original volume will be used anymore.

My approch is good if you have some shares, then just move some of them to the new volume completely.

If there are not dozenz of shares there is no need for a batch just type the roboycopy command a few times, once per moved share.

If folder names are "random" you need to type them in any case, also in the batch as you need to tell the script shich folders are necessary to copy.

When I access the Server with the name (\\servername)  I get nearly 1000 Shares

Its not one Big Share, its Random

Ex:

\\Servername\test\ folder1, folder 2....

\\servername\test2\ folder1, folder 2....

Then its really more easy to MOVE ALL directories of that volume to the new volume and swap the drive letters, so the shares in the registry can keep without modification.

After that you find a few shares that use a bigger amount of data and move them BACK to the old drive, now with the new driveletter and change only the shares in the registry that were moved back to the old volume.

I Cant Change the Drive letter as there is Some application Installed in it.

Then i'm afraid you need to go through the hassle of either reinstallingthe app or moving the shares one by one. And typing the folder names.

Or as a dirty solution extend the space of the ole volume with the space of the new one. But of one drive breaks, all data ist lost.

@Andreas

is Moving the Shares to the new Drive and Modifying the Registry is Possible in this Scenario?

Ex :-

"F " is the Old Drive and "S" is the New Drive.

I Copy some of the Shared folders from F:\ to S:\Migrated Shares\<Project Name>\Shared folder using RoboCOpy and
Modify the Registry of that share to Point the Share to the new Location.

Once The data integrity is Verified and the Share is Accessible I will Delete the folder from the Old Drive.

Thanks, Will give a Try and update