Windows 2003 increasing HDD size in a mirrored set

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ian M
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I

Ian M

Hi All,
I hope I am posting this to the right group. If not, which group should I
post to?

I have a Windows 2003 server with two 73gb drives, which are mirrored. I
need more space, but because the server only has space for two hot-swap disk,
I will need to replace these two disks.
If i get two 300gb drives, what is the easiest way to upgrade the current
disks. i would prefer not to have to reinstall the OS etc...

Any suggestions?

thanks
Ian
 
"Ian M" <IanM@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5D0BE7E7-BAF7-4CB3-A99A-F8A72546B701@microsoft.com...
> Hi All,
> I hope I am posting this to the right group. If not, which group should I
> post to?
>
> I have a Windows 2003 server with two 73gb drives, which are mirrored. I
> need more space, but because the server only has space for two hot-swap
> disk,
> I will need to replace these two disks.
> If i get two 300gb drives, what is the easiest way to upgrade the current
> disks. i would prefer not to have to reinstall the OS etc...
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> thanks
> Ian

I would try this:
1. Break the mirror.
2. Connect the first large disk.
3. Use a cloning tool to copy the small disk to the big disk.
4. Remove the small disk.
5. Boot on the big disk.
6. If all is well, install the second big disk and rebuild the mirror.
If it does not work then nothing is lost because you still have
the original disk.
 
Assuming you are doing hardware raid and not software the procedure would be
as follows:
Buy Acronis server
http://www.acronis.com/smb/
Break the mirror.
Remove the shadow drive
Install new disk
Clone primary disk to new 320gig disk and expand to use the entire drive [if
you wish]
Remove the old primary and set new 320 as primary
Boot it to test.
Install 2nd 320
Hardware mirror primary 320 to shadow 320
Boot the server and you are done.

FYI but you can not clone a server with workstation cloning software.
 
Or just replace the small disk one at the time so at the end the mirror is
on the two large disks. Then use a tool like gparted live CD (free) or other
disk resizing tool to expand the original system partition.

Cheers

"Ian M" <IanM@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5D0BE7E7-BAF7-4CB3-A99A-F8A72546B701@microsoft.com...
> Hi All,
> I hope I am posting this to the right group. If not, which group should I
> post to?
>
> I have a Windows 2003 server with two 73gb drives, which are mirrored. I
> need more space, but because the server only has space for two hot-swap
> disk,
> I will need to replace these two disks.
> If i get two 300gb drives, what is the easiest way to upgrade the current
> disks. i would prefer not to have to reinstall the OS etc...
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> thanks
> Ian
 
Yes, last time was on monday this week, a DELL Power Edge 6350 with a PERC
raid 2 controller, See the supported OS's on the website. I did break the
mirror to have a fall back and had the backups ready just in case. But in
any resize operation: backups in whatever form: make sure you have them.

Cheers


"Joshua Bolton" <JoshuaBolton@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:41E39B27-319A-4466-B21E-FE63CCC968D2@microsoft.com...
> gparted seen here
> http://gparted.sourceforge.net/larry/resize/resizing.htm
>
> Only shows XP screen shots. Not a single mention of Server.
>
> Have you successfully used it on server?
 
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