Move OS Raid HHD to Single SSD

[thobel 1]

My Current setup is 15 2TB Hitachi Drives

2x Are in Raid 1 for the OS and CLient Backups C: 60GB D: 1.25TB

1x Hot Spare

12x Are in Raid 6 for Data F: 18TB

All drives are connected to an Areca 1261ML 2Gb 16 Port

 

I have a 256GB Samsung SSD from a Dell Laptop that failed. I'm also running low on Storage so I figured I would:

 

A) Move OS to the SSD on Motherboards Intel Sata 2 Port

Wipe Original OS

C) Expand Array with the freed up 2x2Tb Drives Curruntly in Raid 1 giving me 4TB of Additional Storage

 

I could really use some help in making sure I don't bork this up. I do have my Data Backed up on another Server but I would rather not have to recreate the whole thing (I'm sure I will mess up a path and need to redo all my HTPC's)

 

For OS I will be cloning the drive every week to another drive via Esata so I'm not that worried about redundency on the OS at this time. I have another Samsung 256GB SSD I may end of life soon and convert to a Raid 1 SSD for the OS down the road.

 

I could really use soe guidence on how best to go about this (In as much detail as possable) what tools? what where how to backup? For expanding the array I know my array supports live expansion but any gotchas?

[jmwills 284]

I will presume this is WHS 2011 since this is where the post is. One option would be to create a VHD (Virtual hard Drive) image and copy it to a portable drive. You could then repair install using that image to the new hard drive, Wonderful technology.

 

Other options would be Ghost, Acronis, etc.

[thobel 1]

I will presume this is WHS 2011 since this is where the post is. One option would be to create a VHD (Virtual hard Drive) image and copy it to a portable drive. You could then repair install using that image to the new hard drive, Wonderful technology.

 

Other options would be Ghost, Acronis, etc.

 

I have this software that came with one of my SSD drives (I think Intel) its 2.5" USB bay with Software from Apricorn EZ Gig II it says put new drive in Bay boot from CD It will image the current Drive/OS to the new Drive When done disable/Remove old drives and install New one and it should work fine. I'm going to do the image and select one time boot from bios and see if it boots fine from the USB drive if so I'll take the current OS offline via raid card and test again with it plugged into the Motherboards Sata port. Will let you guys know how it works

[krom 2]

If you haven't read Pcdoc's article on this topic give it a read:

 

http://homeservershow.com/running-an-ssd-on-whs.html

 

Unless I'm missing something it looks like he did this exact thing. He used Acronis for the cloning in his situation.

 

Good luck and let us know how you make out.

[thobel 1]

It worked! (Thank god) only part that didn't quite work as planned was booting from USB (would bluescreen)

 

Cloned to SSD

Tried and failed booting from SSD in USB bay

Installed SSD to Sata II port on motherboard

Went to Bios (Asus P8P67 Pro) selected Samsung SSD to Boot

Went right into windows found a few devices again?

WHS Is now showing as NOT Genuine? I have like 10 Keys so I'm sure I can fix that (or I hope so)

Deleted 2x2Tb Raid 1 Raid Set

Expanded 12x2TB Raid 6 Set to 14x2TB Raid 6 Set with 1 Hotspare

The Expansion is going slower then all Slow 5 Min so far and 0.6% completed Windows is running like a Pig while its happening so I rebbooted and Loaded into the raid Bios to watch status without Windows messing it up.

[pcdoc 114]

It worked! (Thank god) only part that didn't quite work as planned was booting from USB (would bluescreen)

 

Cloned to SSD

Tried and failed booting from SSD in USB bay

Installed SSD to Sata II port on motherboard

Went to Bios (Asus P8P67 Pro) selected Samsung SSD to Boot

Went right into windows found a few devices again?

WHS Is now showing as NOT Genuine? I have like 10 Keys so I'm sure I can fix that (or I hope so)

Deleted 2x2Tb Raid 1 Raid Set

Expanded 12x2TB Raid 6 Set to 14x2TB Raid 6 Set with 1 Hotspare

The Expansion is going slower then all Slow 5 Min so far and 0.6% completed Windows is running like a Pig while its happening so I rebbooted and Loaded into the raid Bios to watch status without Windows messing it up.

 

Congrats. Pretty straightforward. Good luck and let us the know the final outcome.

[ImTheTypeOfGuy 55]

Why not just remove the OS Raid1 configureation, install the SSD, and load a clean OS? Whala, you are up and running in no time! Sure you have to reinstall add-ins but there aren't that many to be concerned about.

[thobel 1]

Why not just remove the OS Raid1 configureation, install the SSD, and load a clean OS? Whala, you are up and running in no time! Sure you have to reinstall add-ins but there aren't that many to be concerned about.

 

I'm more worried about getting the shares 100% the same so I don't need to redo 3 HTPC's

[thobel 1]

Update (a Bad one)

 

So after the initial migration all ws well except the Server saying its Not Licensed and was running kinda sluggish I figured it was because the raid array was expanding. Well I figure why have windows compete with the raid expansion I rebooted into the raid bios to watch the status and left it like that. after a few hours I decided I wanted to see How fast it would boot to windows. It took forever to load into windows and when it did all i got was a blank screen.. I loaded explorer.exe and moster services where not running and could not be started nothing I clicked did pretty much anything. Tried to run a repair didnt work Im in the process of reinstalling now. Lets just hope the array rebuild continues going good.

[thobel 1]

Good lord migration still only at 76.6% It's worse then watching paint dry..

Edited December 11, 2011 by thobel