upgrade udea needed

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

Alstar - 21 Apr 2008 06:57 GMT

I need help in a upgrade plan, The deal is that we have to upgrade one of
our server with bigger hard disk drives and i need a plan as to how to do it.

We have 3 drives:

C: Os partition
L: Logs
D: Database

Now the OS and the logs are mirrored
The database is on a raid 5.

We have 3 Mbx stores and 1 Pf store.

Now i wana know what the best way to upgrade i mean.... what options do we
have.
Any thoughts on this?

-Alstar

Reply to this Message

Alstar - 22 Apr 2008 03:36 GMT

We do have additional slots to push in new disks, but the catch here is
that we do not wana change the drives letter configuration (ie L= logs and D
= Databases)

Here is what i am thikin, maybe u guys can help me here...

Upgrading the L: drive should be pretty easy

>Take full backup (All the logs will be flushed)
>Dismount stores
>Move the log file path to the D: drive
>Upgrade L: drive and move the logs back from D: drive

Upgrading D: drive (Here it gets a bit tricky)
As we have 4 Mbx stores and 1 Public store
Even if we push in the new temp disk... dont know how i should go about it
actually.

One way is to

>remove the database disks
>upgrade them
>restore from backup

Any better ideas than this... the D: drive needs some planning i would say.

-A

> I need help in a upgrade plan, The deal is that we have to upgrade one of
> our server with bigger hard disk drives and i need a plan as to how to do it.
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
>
> -Alstar

Reply to this Message

Ed Crowley [MVP] - 22 Apr 2008 03:55 GMT

What brand of server? If you're running HP, you can upgrade a RAID-5 array
this way. Say you have a 5-drive RAID-5 array, all 73GB drives. You can
replace each one with a 146GB drive, one at a time, waiting for rebuild to
complete after replacing each before replacing another. If I remember
correctly, after you do that, you'll end up with an array that's double the
size, magically. Someone more in tune with the hardware can correct me if
I'm wrong on this, but it's what I remember.

I'm not aware whether this works for other brands.

Signature

Ed Crowley MVP
"There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

>I need help in a upgrade plan, The deal is that we have to upgrade one of
> our server with bigger hard disk drives and i need a plan as to how to do
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
>
> -Alstar

Reply to this Message

Alstar - 22 Apr 2008 04:16 GMT

We've got Dell servers and my h/w knowledge is kinda not up to the mark.. and
not sure how this would work...

-A

> What brand of server? If you're running HP, you can upgrade a RAID-5 array
> this way. Say you have a 5-drive RAID-5 array, all 73GB drives. You can
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
> >
> > -Alstar

Reply to this Message

Martin Blackstone - 22 Apr 2008 05:13 GMT

I have used the proceedure below with SQL with success. However its not
exactly for the faint of heart.

Stop all Exchange and IIS services and set to manual for startup.
Backup all data on the arrays. Not Exchange aware backup, but flat file.
Shut down.
Remove the disks and replace with bigger ones.
Create new arrays with the larger disks. Maintain the exact same drive
letters.
Restore the data
Set services to auto and reboot.

> We've got Dell servers and my h/w knowledge is kinda not up to the mark..
> and
[quoted text clipped - 38 lines]
>> >
>> > -Alstar

Reply to this Message

Martin Blackstone - 22 Apr 2008 05:09 GMT

Actually I believe it will rebuild the array as the original size, but then
you may be able to use the Smart Array software to expand it. At that point
you could use something like Acronis Disk Director or maybe Diskpart to
extend the volume.

> What brand of server? If you're running HP, you can upgrade a RAID-5
> array this way. Say you have a 5-drive RAID-5 array, all 73GB drives.
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
>>
>> -Alstar

Reply to this Message

Oliver Moazzezi [MVP] - 22 Apr 2008 14:40 GMT

> Actually I believe it will rebuild the array as the original size, but
> then you may be able to use the Smart Array software to expand it. At that
> point you could use something like Acronis Disk Director or maybe Diskpart
> to extend the volume.

Yep Diskpart (or Diskpar pre SP1) can expand any drive other than the System
Disk.

So swapping out disks from your RAID partitions with larger ones and waiting
for the RAID set to rebuild before swapping out another is a good way to go.

Oliver

Reply to this Message

Ed Crowley [MVP] - 23 Apr 2008 01:20 GMT

If your hardware supports it.

Signature

Ed Crowley MVP
"There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."
.

>> Actually I believe it will rebuild the array as the original size, but
>> then you may be able to use the Smart Array software to expand it. At
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
>
> Oliver

Reply to this Message