8 replies to this topic

[eagle63]

I've got an HP Microserver running WHSv1 with 3 2TB WD Green drives. I (stupidly) am using one of those 2TB green drives for the OS (system drive). So that disk has a 20GB partition for the OS and the rest is partitioned as data drive "D".

What I want to do is put in a new 200GB drive which will be just for the OS, and leave the 3 2TB drives as data drives. I'm looking for a sanity check on what steps I need to follow. I'm sure this is documented somewhere but after 10 minutes of Googling I have yet to find a comprehensive list of steps.

1. Perform a "server" backup to an external USB drive. (WHSv1 will do this right? I know it will backup your data drives, but it also will backup the system drive right??)

2. Using the console, remove the 2 other data drives.

3. Install the new drive, and... here's where it gets fuzzy: Can I do a bare-metal restore using my external USB? Or do I need to install WHSv1 from scratch on the new drive, and then do a restore later?


Thnx in advance for any help!

[pcdoc]

I've got an HP Microserver running WHSv1 with 3 2TB WD Green drives. I (stupidly) am using one of those 2TB green drives for the OS (system drive). So that disk has a 20GB partition for the OS and the rest is partitioned as data drive "D".

What I want to do is put in a new 200GB drive which will be just for the OS, and leave the 3 2TB drives as data drives. I'm looking for a sanity check on what steps I need to follow. I'm sure this is documented somewhere but after 10 minutes of Googling I have yet to find a comprehensive list of steps.

1. Perform a "server" backup to an external USB drive. (WHSv1 will do this right? I know it will backup your data drives, but it also will backup the system drive right??)

2. Using the console, remove the 2 other data drives.

3. Install the new drive, and... here's where it gets fuzzy: Can I do a bare-metal restore using my external USB? Or do I need to install WHSv1 from scratch on the new drive, and then do a restore later?


Thnx in advance for any help!

1. V1 does NOT backup the OS, only shares.

2. Yes, you can move out the other 2 drives.

3. Once you have removed the other drives, manually copy the remaining files to the an external drive.

4. Do a fresh install on the drive you want to use.


This is painful so go slow.

[eagle63]

Thanks pcdoc. So what's with all the "Server Recovery" I keep hearing/reading about? My impression is that's what you do when you want to replace a system drive, so I assumed that meant it backed up your OS as well.

[diehard]

With WHSv1 the Server Recovery restores the OS from the DVD not from a Server OS Backup, unfortunately. So it's back to the start. You then have to run Windows Updates and go through all that. Quite time consuming.

Since you want to replace the system drive, that will have to be a Full Factory Reset which will delete the data off the pooled drives, that's why you will want to get the data off those drives because they will be formated when they are added to the pool. Start by adding the external USB drive through the Console as a Backup Drive, you will then see an option under Computers & Backups to backup the server, this means the shares. This is a good option to use because if you need to restart the backup of the shares, it will check what has already been backed up and skip those files, and it will confirm that all is well at the end.

Remember to disconnect the USB drive before you do the Factory Reset or WHS will also delete what's on the USB drive, thinking it's a drive you want to add to the pool.

Something to consider :
By replacing the the 2TB system drive with a 200gig drive, you have just seriously reduced the storage capacity of your server by 1.8TB, is that important to you ?

With WHSv1 as soon as you add a 2nd drive to the pool, the new data that you add will start populating on the new drive and not the data partition of the 2nd drive unless you have Folder Duplication turned on.

Also the hidded PC backups folder will move automatically to the 2nd drive, again reducing the use of the system Drive.

The data partition of the systen drive will then only fill up when there is no longer any free space on the drives added to the pool, so basically it will only be used when there is no other place for files to go.

Using something like Acronis to backup the OS and restore to the 200 gig drive will go horibly wrong because the DiskID's will not transfer properly between the source and target drives and then WHS will detect the OS drive as missing.

There is a article here on how to do it, but this requires a level of expertise.
http://www.mediasmar...ne system drive

PS, it's not a stupid idea to use a 2TB drive as the system drive.

[Joe_Miner]

Thanks pcdoc. So what's with all the "Server Recovery" I keep hearing/reading about? My impression is that's what you do when you want to replace a system drive, so I assumed that meant it backed up your OS as well.

You can learn about the difference between "Recovery" and "Factory Reset" at http://www.mediasmar...iaSmart-Server/

You may wish to read up on this in the manual also http://h10032.www1.h...l/c01868379.pdf

The above should help you with what you want to do.

Edited by Joe_Miner, 30 April 2012 - 08:47 AM.

[ikon]

To add to what diehard said, I have duplicated the system drive, but, you have to clone the drive using a tool that will copy over the drive ID info. I found 2 products that do it: CloneZilla and EaseUS ToDo Backuc. There may be others. However, this is not really a backup; it's a clone,. What this means is that you absolutely cannot start up the server during the cloning process. You shut down the server, clone the drive, then use the cloned drive as the new OS drive. Under no circumstances can you, at some point in the future, put the original drive back and expect to work - it won't. The only way it would work is to use it to make a fresh clone of the current OS drive. There really is no such thing as a backup of a WHSv1 OS drive.

To add to what Joe_Miner said, you've run into the semantics of the 3 'R's of WHS naming: Restore vs Recovery vs Reset. With WHSv1 you simply cannot do a Restore which, if you could do it, would restore the OS to a previous state without destroying data. A Recovery will reinstall WHSv1 while maintaining the data pool. A Reset will install WHSv1 just like the computer was fresh out of the box. One of the advantages of WHS2011 is that you can do OS backups and restores.

I wouldn't feel bad about not knowing you can't backup/restore the OS drive. I know I, and I'm sure a lot of other people familiar with MS OS', were pretty shocked to learn this fact about WHSv1 when we first started using it.

[diehard]

To add to ikon's post,

The clone stuff will work, however since your going from a 2TB drive to a smaller 200 gig drive, then for this to succeed, you would have to have less than 180 gig of data ( 20 gig for the C:) already on the 2TB drive. Usually this is not an issue for folks because they are increasing the drive size rather than reducing it.

Unlike a pooled drive that you may remove from the pool as long as their is sufficient disk space, you cannot ordinarily move off the data from the D: partition of the system drive unless you do a hack which requires an app called Drive Balancer.

Using this utility will reduce the data on the D: partition of the system drive so you can then clone the drive.

Must have patience.

http://homeserversho...er-utility.html

http://connecteddigi...ws-home-server/

http://forum.wegotse...-now-available/

http://forum.wegotse...&attach_id=2089

[eagle63]

Thanks everyone, I think the answer for me now is clear: don't do anything. My whole motivation for doing this was because I felt that putting the OS on it's own dedicated drive is "The Right Way" to do things. So I figured I'd just take an unused 200GB drive and restore the OS to that drive and then use the 2TB drives as purely storage drives for the shares.

Some day I will be moving to WHS2011, but for now WHSv1 is working great so there's no sense in undertaking a large effort like this that has lots of risk and probably not a lot of upside.

[ikon]

Thanks everyone, I think the answer for me now is clear: don't do anything. My whole motivation for doing this was because I felt that putting the OS on it's own dedicated drive is "The Right Way" to do things. So I figured I'd just take an unused 200GB drive and restore the OS to that drive and then use the 2TB drives as purely storage drives for the shares.

Some day I will be moving to WHS2011, but for now WHSv1 is working great so there's no sense in undertaking a large effort like this that has lots of risk and probably not a lot of upside.

Makes good sense to me - if it ain't broke.........