Question : PowerEdge 1950 - Hard Drive Upgrade - Server 2003 R2

Hello,

We've PowerEdge 1950 server and it's running on Server 2003 R2 x64 edition. It has four internal slots for storage. Currently we're using two slots by placing 2 73GB SAS hard drives using RAID-1 configuration. i.e., We created a new Virtual Disk and created RAID-1 configuration in Dell OpenManage Server Administrator tool.

We would like to upgrade our hard drives from 73GB to 173GB. How can we upgrade hard drives? i.e., How to move data from old hard drive to new hard drive? When we spoke with Dell support, they said we need to buy new higher storage hard drives and create a new virtual disk by creating new RAID-1 configuration. He said it will automatically copy the old hard drive content.

Is there any option available in Dell OpenManage Server Administrator 6.2.0 version? Thank you.

Related Solutions: How to Upgrade SCSI SAS HDD - RAID -1 Config / PowerEdge 1950

Answer : PowerEdge 1950 - Hard Drive Upgrade - Server 2003 R2

Yes, that is usually done via hard drive or partition level backup. One of the tools you might have or stop your eye on: Paragon Drive Backup 10 Server: www.drive-backup.com
Symantec Ghost: www.symantec.com
Acronis True Image: www.acronis.com
How it would look with Drive Backup 10 (I use it personally):
a)Download and install program - Run Backup wizard - create image to external drive or network share.
b)Shut down the server and replace the small drives with bigger ones. Rebuild RAID1 with new drives via RAID utility.
c)Boot the server from WinPE Recovery CD for Drive Backup - load drivers for RAID if needed for better HDD detection.
d)Run Drive Backup 10 from WinPE and restore from backup. During restore you can resize the partitions proportionally so the new space would be allocated to existing partitions automatically. Apply changes and wait till the end of operation. Restart to Windows.
Done.
If you have more than one DC in your network then save System State backup via NTbackup before running any of the mentioned backup software.