Emergency Exchange 2010 Migration

[Paul Rodgers]

This is at my full time job.

The server is a PowerEdge 2900.

Ended up finding a temporary fix that stopped the metal on metal sound (head crash?).

I am doing an image backup with my Datto device. Thinking of upgrading all of the drives and doing a bare metal restore. Maybe also adding ram (currently 8 GB).

I think I need to get a few cheap servers for a lab environment. Learn how to deal with these situations more effectively.

[YeOldeStonecat]

If you have a backup on your datto....you can breath a sigh of relief.

Regarding replacing all the drives, not a bad idea....but you can avoid having to do a bare metal restore. Just replace 1x drive at a time...wait a day for the array to rebuild...replace the next drive..wait another day for the array to rebuilt...repeat process until all drives are replaced. Let the RAID controller do its job.

[Paul Rodgers]

Originally Posted by YeOldeStonecat

If you have a backup on your datto....you can breath a sigh of relief.

Regarding replacing all the drives, not a bad idea....but you can avoid having to do a bare metal restore. Just replace 1x drive at a time...wait a day for the array to rebuild...replace the next drive..wait another day for the array to rebuilt...repeat process until all drives are replaced. Let the RAID controller do its job.

Well if I'm replacing drives I would like to be able to utilize the whole drive. By replacing them and rebuilding the array that won't be an option.

I have 2 x 40 GB drives running Server 08 R2 and the 3 x 80 GB drives that Exchange is installed on. That isn't a modern setup.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Originally Posted by Paul Rodgers

Well if I'm replacing drives I would like to be able to utilize the whole drive. By replacing them and rebuilding the array that won't be an option..

Not necessarily true....many of the better RAID controllers (such as the PE 2900s can have) allow online RAID expansion.

Say you start out with triple 80 gig drives in a RAID 5 for the infostore...netting you a hair under 160 gigs usable.
Replace with 3x 146 drives....one at a time. After you swap out that 3rd drive....if the RAID controller supports expansion, you'll be able to expand that volume to the just under 300 gigs a RAID 5 of triple 146 gigers would net you. Once that's done...go to disk manglement in Winders...and you'll see that extra available space as unused. Run a quick DISKPART /EXTEND (native tool in Windows since XP/2k3)...and in the blink of an eye your D drive or E drive or whatever is using all that space....just under 300 gigs in size now. Assuming the server has hot swap drives..all of this can be done without a reboot. Although I still like to bounce a server after running diskpart.