Re: SBS2003 -Limited space, New HD, GHOST

Good Morning,

Woah, very detailed what I needed. Thanks. I did some pricing of these
products for 2 HD and 1 controller. We have Dell computers. I usually like
to buy internal stuff (memory, HD etc) direct from Dell. But external
hardware upgrades I usually like to go with CDW. If I buy the 2 HDs &
controller from Dell it'll cost me about $700-$800. If I purchase these
items from CDW it'll cost me around $300-$400.

I'm telling you this because this server is pretty old. It has (2) 800MHZ
processors in it with 2GB of ram. We don't have ANY problems with
performance that I know of. (Other than Outlook/Exchange sometimes lags)
But we use SQL too and that's like a JET! The only real problem with this
server is the storage. We are looking to move to a whole new different
business management software called Everest. I don't know if I should put
any more money into this server. If it was $200 I wouldn't mind. I'm
thinking we should just go with a new server. What are your thoughts?

If we did, what would be the best way to transfer data from one machine to
the next. I'd prefer not to do tape back. We use Exchange/public folders
and SQL and I'd rather not install the OS from scratch again. I'd like to be
able to just GHOST the HD and put it on the new one. Just a little recap.
We have 2 HDs in this server. Disk 0 has 2 partitions. This is the most
important HD. Has OS, exchange public folders, SQL data etc. on it. Disk 1
is a bunch of archived data and other stuff that I can easily transfer to
another network computer. Sorry to throw this monkey wrench in there. I'm
really thinking about another Server now since this is going to cost $200.
But if this makes the process a lot harder, I may have to follow your
suggestions below.

"Anna Clark" <anna.clark(remove this)@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:%23QVwIKZNHHA.1248@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi Anthony:

Sorry for the delay in posting back... I have been away.

In regards to your reply from Dull: SBS does NOT have a "ghost" like
feature.

There are two different concepts at work here.

First is the concept of fault tolerant hardware, which in this case would
seem to be RAID1 = "mirroring" your drive(s).

Second it the concept of transferring all the bits and bytes from your now
too small drive0 to a larger drive0. Two different things.

The first drive in a system is usually tagged as drive0 by the OS, and if
you open disk manager you will see your two drives, probably as drive0 and
drive1.

Your goal should be:

make very good backups, and test them.

1. Purchase two new drives of the size you want.

2. Optional: Purchase a drive controller that supports raid1. It could
support more kinds of raid, but for the OS, RAID1 is a good place to be.

OR, use the native raid1 support built into SBS (and all Windows Server
OS's)

3. Once you have the concept and the plan in place, use the transfer
method
of your choice to move the bits and bytes from your existing drive to the
new one

4. Using the appropriate tools, make the drive a member of a raid array
to
add fault tolerance to your system.

I would also do this for your existing second drive.... very important, as
the data is more important that the OS.

Note that steps 3 and 4 can be reversed, depending on the hardware or
software raid.

After you are done you would have:

Drive0 + drive1 = raid1 array 1. Partitioned however you wish

Drive2 + drive3 = raid1 array 2. Partitioned however you wish.

Also note that windows is funny about the way it tags drives, and I have
never taken the time to document it. you could wind up with drive4+drive2
and drive6+drive5. Also note that if you use hardware raid, windows will
not see the second drive in each array. The firmware on the controller
makes the mirror and presents the drive to Windows as a single drive, such
as Drive0 (really 2) and Drive1 (also really 2)

Regarding the driver issue:

Better raid controllers, as well as windows native mirroring, allow one to
add the second drive after the first is in place. With Windows software
raid, there are no drivers. With the better hardware controllers, you add
the controller to the system board using the appropriate slot, then add
the
driver to the existing OS.. The controller must be in the system when the
driver is added in order for the driver to detect the controller. Once
the
driver is safely installed in the os, and the board has been reconized and
is seen in device manager, you should be able to move the drive off the
existing controller and onto the new one.

Not that your motherboard may already have a raid controller built in.
These come in various flavors and can be very robust, or very poor...
usually the latter. My advice is to either use the windows native
mirroring, or to get a Promise or Adaptec controller that is backed by
quality and tech support.

Lastly, if you have room in the case, keep your existing drive, the one
that
is too small and put the paging file and perhaps stuff you don't mind
losing, such as downloads that are easily replaced. Windows works best
when the active page file is not on the same partition/spindle as the OS.

If all of this is really geek speek, then I would suggest that you hire it
done. Should be under $250.00 US, plus the cost of the parts. If you
want
to pay for the plane fare, and if it is not too cold where you are, I
would
do it for that.

Regards:

Anna



"Anthony Smith" <anthony@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ueAxxYANHHA.5000@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I just contacted Dell support to ask them about the new HD & Raid
controller, this was there response to doing a mirror/image

"I honestly didn't know SBS came with an option to ghost an image, but I
would say use that and go for it. The only problem is that you will need
to
install the driver to the raid controller. And since the raid controller
wont get installed until you have everything backed up in an image, the
correct driver will not be installed when you try to load that image.
Which
will result in a blue screen inaccessible boot device"

The driver has to be installed for the raid controller to work. They are
recommending another way instead of ghost/imaging. Backup to tape or
external drive, install OS then restore files. I don't like that option
and
it will take much more time. What do you'll suggest?
"Leythos" <void@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:MPG.200c36912a4a1fe698974e@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <uy36dfyMHHA.4244@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, anthony@xxxxxxxxxxx
says...
Good Morning,

Thanks for the reply Ms. Clark. The 1st hard drive is One drive with
two
partitions. The 2nd drive was added maybe 1 or 2 years ago for extra
storage space, a lot of archived data. Actually I begin to think
about
what
you said. Since you can only image/ghost 1 hard drive, all I really
need
is
to get one new hard drive and image/ghost the 1st hard drive with
local
C
&
local D drives. I don't need to do that 2nd hard drive. My main
problem
is
that there is very little space on my local C and I've almost
exhausted
all
options freeing up space. We're about to get a new business software
and
I
don't want space to be the problem for the system drive. So If we get
a
new
100GB hard drive and image/ghost the 1st hard drive, that should fix
the
problem with little space. So please disregard my statement about the
2nd
drive, that's isn't a concern, it's already used primarily for archive
purposes and does not need to be imaged.

With that in mind, what do you recommend for imaging 1 hard drive.
Also
do I
have to shut down services in order for the Exchange & SQL files to
copy
to
the new hard drive? Please advise. (I hope I didn't confuse you,
smile)

Ghost (at least the real Ghost 2003 and before) worked from a boot
diskette and let you clone one drive to another and resize while doing
it.

You do understand that having a server running without mirrored/RAID-5
means that you're going to suffer a complete loss at some point, and
you'll only have your backup solution (if you have one) to recover your
data from?

You need two things:

1) Purchase a RAID controller card
2) Install mirrored drives or RAID 5, to protect you against drive
failure

After the above, you can resize your drives.

--

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