Adding drives to an array - restoring shares etc... 1

[ksperle]

OK, here's the situation:

Have an IBM x345 eSeries server with an external SCSI drive array. My server drives are c: (op sys). Drive array is d: (data).

When we bought the server I was told we could easily add drives to my array later on as we needed space. So, like an idiot I only installed 8 drives (instead of the max of 14).

Fast forward about two years and of course we need more space. I bought and installed the drives and got to looking around in the IBM ServeRAID software and it doesn't appear I can "extend" my array to include the new drives. Instead of creating another array/partition I'm just planning to back it up, delete the array and create a new one using all 14 drives and then restore my data.

Simple enough to do, but I'm of course lazy and don't feel like rebuilding all the shares.

I've done some searching and realize programs like robocopy, xcopy and such can copy the NTFS file permissions, but not the shares. I also found the info on SecureCopy, but I'm not going to spend that kind of money.

One thing I read interested me. It was regarding migrating shares to a new server and talked about exporting the lanman registry entries to the new server.

Can I use this method for what I'm trying to accomplish or DO I EVEN need to since I'll be restoring everything back to the same server & drive letter. Since I won't be re-installing anything operating system wise, will my shares just come back to life?

Thanks.

PS - I'm also looking into the Hyena software if anyone wants to comment on that.

 

[baddos]

How is your raid disk setup? Some brands will let you add another array and expand the LUN into that array. If you can't do that with your existing storage, just rebuild your array.

Make sure you have a good full backup! After that I would use xcopy to copy all the data and NTFS permissions to a temporary place (usb hard drive, another server, etc) and then rebuild the array. Recreate your shares and then xcopy it all back.

 

[ksperle]

My existing array (8 drives) is setup for RAID 5. It looks like I can do spanned arrays (RAID 50), but their examples show equal numbers of drives in each array to start, so I'm not sure how 8 & 6 would work out. I might give it a shot.

It's probably easier in the long run to backup/delete/create/restore. I just hate spending my day off friday re-creating shares!

 

[Roadki11]

How big is the current array? If its not to huge you could slave in a large ide, sata, or usb hard drive and use something like ghost to image that D drive. Then rebuild the array with all 14 disks and ghost the image back. All shares will be intact, probably take less than 2 hours.



RoadKi11

"This apparent fear reaction is typical, rather than try to solve technical problems technically, policy solutions are often chosen." - Fred Cohen

 

[pagy]

You don't have to re-create shares;

Saving and restoring existing Windows shares

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/125996

Paul
MCSE 2003
MCSA 2003
MCITP Enterprise Administrator

If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?
Scott Adams

 

[ksperle]

Thanks Paul, I think I'm going to try that.

 

[ksperle]

Well, after I restored my data all my shares seemed to be there and they were functioning for me. I didn't even have to restore the registry entry. They were there and the permissions were correct.

Unfortunately "normal" users could connect to the share but not see their files. I deleted and re-created the share and they were fine. Didn't have to re-map their drives or anything.

At this point I probably should have tried restoring the registry entries but since they were still there, I wasn't sure it would help. I ended up just re-creating the 60 or so shares. It really didn't take very long.

Thanks for the help.

 

[TechyMcSe2k]

The registry entries referenced would have restored the share and appropriate permissions. I had this issue with my file server once. Good to hear you are back up