Advice - clone server

A

ashman

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Mar 28, 2011
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I need some advice on a solution I am working on for a client.

They currently have a physical Dell T310 that is running Win 2008R2, its a DC, running DNS, a bunch of applications, Veeam, Backup Exec, it has an internal tape drive, its a file server, etc. I want to replace it with a Dell T320 but clone the drives to the new server. What is the best way to do this? I thought about installing Server 2008R2 on the T320, installing all the updates so its the same as the T310, then restoring the C drive from the T310 to the T320 via the tape backup as the T320 will have a larger capacity LTO drive then the T310, that should work although the restore would restore drivers from the T310 and then the T320 might not boot, the raid controllers are different between the T310 and T320. I could use something ling Arconis, I've never used clonezilla before.

Thoughts?
 
Thats probably not the cleanest way, some will suggest converting to a VM which makes portability easier.
Do the machines use the same raid card? and/or does windows have built in drivers for it?
Your method might work fine, but why not use both servers and gracefully move services over bit by bit
 
I'd much rather P2V than clone it. I hate cloning desktop OSes to new hardware let a lone a server.
 
What I can tell you is that you do not want to do what you suggested because the machine is a domain controller - also, has other special software - anything that starts with the letters Symantec.

Cloning the disks wouldn't be a bad idea - the only real gotcha would be getting the hardware drivers right. While I've never tried this myself, I wonder if you pre-load the driver store before making the clone with the new hardware's raid controller on the old server that things would *just work* after recovery.

The worst thing that can happen is that you have to roll-back to the old machine if you're missing other critical drivers (add them to the store, rinse and repeat).
The second worst thing that can happen is that you have the old machine running while restoring the new one. Don't do this one.

Also, mind you licensing. If you are utilizing OEM licensing, the new box MUST have OEM server licensing too, or you need to have already purchased new 2012 Server retail. If the old box has retail licensing, then your solid.

The new box may have 2012 OEM server licensing. It is legal to downgrade to 2008. With this said, a P2V to new hardware that also has 2012 OEM licensing would allow you to take advantage of a second 2012/2008 virtualized server running on that chassis. A caveat would be to make sure that your tape drive can be presented correctly through the hyper-visor to the guest and performance doesn't go through the floor.

I don't know about Hyper-V, but I do know that VMware has removed support for hardware pass-through of tape drives since 5.x. Doesn't mean you can't do it, they just won't support it.
 
The T310 is also running Hyper V with one VM which I am going to move over to VMware first anyway. I could remove AD from the server that would leave just DNS, I could move that too. There are just a bunch of applications, its a file server, I don't want to virtualize it for other reasons. The T310 has a Perc 6i and the T320 will have an H710p so completely different raid controllers. I think I might look into the Acronis route, its expensive for one time use and I'd much rather have a clean install, but I can't see any other way.
 
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