Cheapest way to virtualize old Windows 2000 database server?

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Spartacus

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I have a customer who has an old Win 2000 server with a proprietary real estate database on it. They've gone to a new web based database, but still need the historical database on the old server. That darn box has gone through a couple of hard drives and it's gasping for breath. It will drop for good one of these days.

I've setup some Hyper-V machines, but never had the need to take an old running server and virtualize it so I can scrap the old hardware.

What is the cheapest way to virtualize this box?

Their main server is 2008 with Peachtree (only a couple of users) and no other database activity, just 400GB or so of shared data. It would be nice to put the virtual machine on that. Or I could also pull an old 2003 server out of a closet to use for that.

Looking to get it done cheap though.....
 
ESXi. It handles older OSes better than Hyper-V. Base version is free.
 
My best experience migrating a legacy system into a VM was with Acronis True Image with Universal Restore. I took the drive out of an old P4 Dell running XP, imaged with True Image, created a VM, booted from the recovery iso, and used universal restore feature. Worked pretty darn well, much better transfer than installing Windows on top of itself like XP wanted.

http://www.acronis.com/en-us/business/universal-restore/
 
or virtualbox... its not particularly server grade but it could definitely get the job done
 
If you have a Hyper-V server or a workstation that can run Hyper-V, use Disk2VHD on your old server. Make sure it does boot, but then you have a virtual copy of the HD.
 
firedrow said:
If you have a Hyper-V server or a workstation that can run Hyper-V, use Disk2VHD on your old server. Make sure it does boot, but then you have a virtual copy of the HD.
Click to expand...

Seconded. Just make sure that you stop ALL unnecessary services before you image, and do a single drive at a time. Works like a charm for me, every time!
 
I've had great success with vmware's converter. Did a 2000 box and everything.
 
Thanks guys, just the kind of info I need.

So if I'm reading this correctly, I can use the free VMware converter P2V to convert the old server to a VM that will run on the free version of ESXi? That would be nice!

ESXi requires a dedicated host machine though correct?

I'm kind of liking the idea of using the Acronis Universal Restore to VirtualBox. That would cost for the Acronis backup software, but it would be really easy. That way I could run VirtualBox on their main server and not dedicate a machine to an ESXi host. The old Win 2000 server only gets accessed rarely by 1 user at a time usually, so the VirtualBox VM should be fine for performance and reliability.
 
the VMware converter you can convert to VMware workstation/player, which is the same as virtualbox
 
dbwillis said:
the VMware converter you can convert to VMware workstation/player, which is the same as virtualbox
Click to expand...

That sounds like the way to go then, thanks.

The customer will be pleased if I can get this done inexpensively.
They didn't want to spring for new hardware on a server they rarely use.

Edit: Looks like the player is $150, I'll have to see how that compares to buying a copy of the Acronis.
 
Player is free, workstation costs

I used the converter when a customers server crashed and was well out of warranty, actually had to buy a refurb server of the same model from geeks.com

Server had hardware failure
- converted to VM
-- ran on player on another office PC
 
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