Re: adding a larger drive to an existing mirror set

1st. DO NOT logically break your mirror set.
2nd. How do you intend reverting from dynamic to standard. MS do not support
any way of doing this.

I find Jacky's comments and references mostly useless.

Shutdown the system and remove drive0.
Power up the system to ensure you can boot OK off drive1. At this time Disk
Management will show a missing partner to your two existing partitions,
leave it that way.
Shutdown the system and attach one new 250GB drive as drive0. It is
important that this drive does not have a partition on it at this time.
Power up the system. The drive will be detected as a new device and may ask
you to restart. Do nothing more at this time, just let the device install
then restart.
Convert the new drive to Dynamic type. (not sure, this may require restart,
only do so if prompted)
Create a single Primary partition on the new drive and mark it as active (if
possible. It's been a while since I've done soft raid and I can't be
bothered firing up a test system, I _think_ you can mark it as active at
this point.). DO NOT restart, you should not be prompted to do so but if so
don't do it anyway.
Delete the partition from the new drive.
Restart.
Tell the system to re-establish mirroring between your existing partitions
and blank space on the new drive. Allow the mirrors to rebuild.
Shutdown and remove drive1 (old drive), boot off drive0.

At this time we have moved your installation to a larger drive by the only
MS supported method, native Windows tools. You have a choice of staying with
a fully MS supported system or using partition manipulation software. I
prefer to stay fully MS supported and create an additional partition on the
remaining space.

Shutdown, install your 2nd 250GB drive.
Power up the system. The drive will be detected as a new device and may ask
you to restart. Do nothing more at this time, just let the device install
then restart.
Convert the 2nd new drive to Dynamic type. (not sure, this may require
restart, only do so if prompted)
Create a single Primary partition on the new drive and mark it as active (if
possible. It's been a while since I've done soft raid and I can't be
bothered firing up a test system, I _think_ you can mark it as active at
this point.). DO NOT restart, you should not be prompted to do so but if so
don't do it anyway.
Delete the partition from the new drive.
Restart.
Tell the system to re-establish mirroring between your existing partitions
and blank space on the new drive. Allow the mirrors to rebuild.

Create and format your additional partition and mirror it to remaining space
on the 2nd drive. Shuffle stuff around to best utilise the space.

I may have left out a step about deleting missing HDD's from Disk
Management, I'm working from memory. This will happen at the point of
re-establishing mirroring, both to the 1st and 2nd new drives, and the
message you get basically tells you what is required.

To the best of my memory you do not at any time 'break' the mirrors but this
is done automagically by the removal of the missing HDD's from disk
management.

If you do decide to resize your partitions it is probably best to do so
either from the intact array or by shutting down, removing drive0, moving
drive1 to the drive0 port, starting, removing references to the missing
drive, reboot, shutdown and doing an offline copy/resize at this point.

If it goes wrong at any point in either procedure you shutdown, remove any
'wrong' drives, return drive0 and boot off this unmodified drive alone,
restart a couple of times, return drive1 (to be sure I'd delete partitions
on it before booting Windows) rebuild your original mirrors, start again.

Something I've forgotten a couple of times is to stop and disable SMTP
and/or the POP connector into the server during the procedure. If you do
have to revert to your original drive you don't want some of your email to
have been accepted by the system you throw away.

"JimA" <JimA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:E0A3527C-E3E9-4990-812B-EB294E8E0ECF@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi Jacky,

Thanks for the response. After trying a few things I think I've finally
decided what I think I need to do to move my mirror drives to a larger set
of
mirror drives.

Fact: Raid 1 software mirrors only miror the EXACT same size of the
orginal
drive.
(E.G. my original drives are 80GB and my new are 250GB)
If I just add a larger drive and remirror It will work but WILL NOT
utilize the larger disk space, which is the whole intent of this
excercise.

Since my drives are currently mirrored: The steps are:

1. Break Mirror
2. Revert to Simple volumes
3. Copy the existing partitions on the 80GB to new larger partitions on
the
new 250GB drives. (what is best method of copying all files
(system+)?
4. Remove the old 80GB and make the new 250GB bootable and test
5. If alls well then install the other 250GB and mirror.

Please feel free to make any and all necessary correctons and/or
recommendations?

Thanks again.
--
Jim A.


""Jacky Luo [MSFT]"" wrote:

Hi Jim,

Thanks for posting here.

From the description, I understand the issue is that you want to do
mirror
on SBS 2003 and

replace one of existing disk. If I am off base, please don't hesitate to
let me know.

Let us refer to the following steps to troubleshoot the issue:

Please break existing mirror set first,then create a mirror set,refer to
the following

article and KB,there are detailed steps.


How do I break a mirror set (RAID 1) in Windows 2000?
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/14679/14679.html

How do I create a mirror set (RAID 1) in Windows 2000?
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/14678/14678.html

How to mirror the system and boot partition (RAID1) in Windows Server
2003
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323432/en-us

More useful information:


Best practices for using dynamic disks on Windows Server 2003-based
computers
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816307/en-us

How to use the Disk Management Snap-in to manage Basic and Dynamic Disks
in
Windows Server

2003
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323442/en-us

Note:upgrade basic disk to dynamic disk,then add mirror.


I appreciate your time. I am happy to be of assistance and look forward
to
your reply.


Have a nice day!

Best regards,

Jacky Luo (MSFT)
Microsoft CSS Online Newsgroup Support

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
====================================================
PLEASE NOTE: The partner managed newsgroups are provided to
assist with break/fix issues and simple how to questions.
We also love to hear your product feedback! Let us know what you think
by
posting

from the web interface: Partner Feedback
from your newsreader: microsoft.private.directaccess.partnerfeedback.

We look forward to hearing from you!
====================================================
When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader
so that others may learn and benefit from this issue.
====================================================
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
====================================================




.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: file system setup for new system - recommendations?
    ... don't have a separate /usr partition. ... How useful are your backups if you lose the drive that has both your ... Next use the following instructions to set up vinum to mirror the 80GB ... if you have two identical drives (or a ...
    (freebsd-questions)
  • Re: RAID, partitioning and imaging
    ... Any partition created will be mirrored / identical in your second raid drive ... You are aware that raid 1 is a mirror?, and as such you should be able to ... mirror, and so the problem would exist on both drives, so ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Hard drive replacement
    ... do something about the partition size. ... results in a 100% supportable system. ... >>Though MS do not officially support drives modified in this manner I have ... Had what I thought were two 80GB HDD's in a mirror by ...
    (microsoft.public.backoffice.smallbiz2000)
  • Re: I need further HDD advice before submitting order.
    ... > drives in a RAID-1 mirror than have my stuff on two seperate drives, ... > using software RAID like vinum/gvinum, you can still mirror 80GB onto ... > chunk of space uncommitted on the big disk. ... >> giving specific subdirectories their own partition at a later date ...
    (freebsd-questions)
  • Re: Worst monday of my life - please help...
    ... If that's the case, restoring the SQL ... but it finally did install with a few hiccups. ... >> or just leave the mirrored drives in the server on the secondary IDE ... I decided it was time to re-add the mirror. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)