Mirrorings - Changing Drives to bigger drives

[smileydba]

Howdy all,

Quick question. We have a client who has software mirroring. We are about to update and install newer and bigger drives. They currently have 2 18.2GB SCSI drives. We will be replacing them with 2 36.2GB drives. Now, is there a way that we can BREAK the mirror, take one old 18.2 drive out and replace it with a 36.2, recreate the mirror, and then break the mirror again, and install the other 36.2 drive????? Is there a process with this?????

I know this is pretty elementary, but at the moment, Im lost. I dont want to start this without a clear overview of what to do.


Rob W>

 

[wallst32]

You can't mirror an 18GB partition to a 36GB partition. If you took that approach you would end up with the 36GB being split in two; an 18GB partition of the original drive, and 18GB of free unpartition space.

The recommended way of doing this would be to take a full backup of the 18GB, install at least one of the 36GB hard drives, partition and format the whole 36GB, then restore to the 36GB partition. Then you can install the 2nd 36GB and mirror them.

I personally would just install one of the 36GBs, partition and format, and then use robocoy to copy all the data over.

 

[user9876]

Just to add something to the initial question, could you add the larger drive and mirror it and then use something like partition magic to extend the partition. I am going to be doing the same thing soon and my harddrives are 73 gig with 2 partitions. A 12 gig partition and the data partition of 60 and am going to add 2 147 drives. Could i not do this and then extend the 60 gig data partition to 135 or so.

 

[technome]

User9876 is correct, you could remove ONE drive, replace it with a larger drive, let the new drive rebuild COMPLETELY, then apply the same procedure with the other new drive. If you have the cash I would look into Acronis True Image server 8.0. I have used it to image a raid array, and it will resize an array.

........................................
Chernobyl disaster..a must see pictorial

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

 

[justin42279]

In addition to acronis true image, i've used r-drive image to image my partition before. Worked very well. You could break the mirror, make an image of your 18 gig and transfer it to the 36 gigbit. After, just swap and redo the mirror. Should work perfectly and the software only costs like $60.00. Doesn't have all of the goodies of acronis but it works great to make a simple image.

http://www.r-tt.com

Justin

 

[monsterjta]

Simply...DriveImage5.

You will need a network boot disk to perform these actions.

Take an image of the system just before installation of the new drives. Obviously place the image in a different location on the network. Bring the system down and slap in the new drives. Boot to the network and run drive image, applying the image you've just burned. Drive image will detect that there are different size drives and prompt what to do with them. Choose to "manually resize". If you have more than one channel, you will need to perform this action on each channel. Of course, during the resize operation, select all available disk space and accept. Apply your image and you're in business!

Hope This Helps,

Good Luck!

(I do what I can with what I know)

 

[fs483]

Are you sure DriveImage5 supports Server OS ? The only product from Powerquest that would work on server OS is VolumeManager and it costs a bundle !

 

[monsterjta]

That's what I use and it works great! Currently, I use it on Windows 2000/2003 Server machines.

Don't know if it makes a difference, but the DriveImage5 I am using was taken out of the PQ Deploy Center suite. Is this a 'corporate' version that will work on server grade OS's, and the other will not??? Just curious...

Hope This Helps,

Good Luck!

(I do what I can with what I know)