Server Migration - Beating the "path too deep" error

[irbk]

First, a little background. We lease our server hardware. We refresh the hardware every 3 years which gives us a chance to upgrade to a new server OS if necessary. When we move over to the new server, we generally take the easy approach. On a weekend when no users are in, we rename the old file server, after we confirm AD replication is complete, we name the new file server the same as the old file server and just copy the data from the old server to the new server. We usually run across the "path too deep" error a few times, but for the most part it's not a big deal. Some times what I've done in the past is boot the older server up with Knoppix, copy the data to an external USB drive because Knoppix is more forgiving about the path length, then boot the new server into Knoppix and copy the data from the USB drive. This has worked pretty well for some of our smaller file servers.
This is the first time we will be attempting to move nearly 1/2 Tb from one server to another. I expect to encounter a lot of "path too deep" errors. I'm looking for suggestions on how to move the data from one server to another. I suppose I could go with a full restore of the data partition from the latest tape backup but might there be something easier?

 

[irbk]

Oh, I think I may have answered my own question. I think Robocopy may be my answer.

 

[itsp1965]

I am not sure if Robocopy handles the deep path issue.. But what I have done in the past is to use the DOS SUBST command in order to create a 'substituted' drive which allows me to map deep into a directory tree by replacing the path with a drive letter.

Ex) SUBST G: (or any avail drive letter) C:\dir1\subdir1\..sub-subdir..etc\

This will make your path shorter and easier when performing a migration using your favorite copy tool

 

[irbk]

So far robocopy hasn't thrown me any errors and I've copied over multiple directories that did throw errors when just doing a "drag & drop" copy. Looking at the folder properties everything jives too.

 

[58sniper]

Robocopy is VERY nice for migrations. Using the /mir options allows you to prestage the target server. You can run it multiple times to keep things updated. Then, when it's "go" time, kill the share permissions to keep users out, run Robocopy again (should be VERY quick), and you're done with that part.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.exchangeblogs.com/

 

[irbk]

Yep, that's my general plan!