Migrating created data disks to new OS

[kiteizenga]

Enterprise Headquarters rolled out our VMware Solution but on Windows Server 2003 Enterprise. Only literally weeks later They sent us a template for rolling out DC's Windows Server 2008 R2. I have a Backup Server that I have 4 2 TB disks cut in to a E, F, G, H, Drive. These drives are of course .vmdk files. Is there any way to migrate these drives/files to the new Windows Server 2008 R2 with data intact? Is there some feature of VMWare I am forgetting about?

[Troy_Clavell]

vSphere4 supports a maximum of 2TB minus 512bytes, so the 2TB needs to be slightly under.  Also, your going to have to split up the vmdks into multiple 8MB 2TB minus 512byte Datastores.

Message was edited by: Troy Clavell - Disregard note about converter...

[weinstein5]

Are you looking for this to on a phtysical box or a VM? I am assuming they sent it to you as a VMware Template -

If it is to be a VM - you will need to add the template to your VMware environment - then you would be a ble to deploy a new machine from the template.

If it is to be a physical server - You will still need to a deploy it as a VM than obtain a tool that will allow you to erform a Virtual to Physical migration like Plate Spin -

[Walfordr]

Note:  I assumed that the 2003 was a VM (with vmdks disks) and the 2008 R2 VM was already deployed.

kiteizenga wrote:

Enterprise Headquarters rolled out our VMware Solution but on Windows Server 2003 Enterprise. Only literally weeks later They sent us a template for rolling out DC's Windows Server 2008 R2. I have a Backup Server that I have 4 2 TB disks cut in to a E, F, G, H, Drive. These drives are of course .vmdk files. Is there any way to migrate these drives/files to the new Windows Server 2008 R2 with data intact? Is there some feature of VMWare I am forgetting about?

As long as E, F, G, H do not have any system data you should be able to remove/detatch (Do Not Delete) them from the existing VM.  Then add the disks to the 2008 R2 VM.  Rescan storage in computer management and they should show up.  You may have to change the drive letters as you see fit.

You'll need to power down the 2003 VM to detach the disks (DO NOT DELETE).  You should be able to hot add to the 2008 R2.

There are no features that I know of to migrate vmdks from one VM to the other.

These are are very large VMDKs - each in its own datastore I take it?

Message was edited by: Walfordr added note

[farkasharry]

A bit off topic, but what are you doing on domain controllers with 8 TB of space??? Are you having an AD account for the entire humanity? :smileygrin:
Or is it also used as DFS file server?

[Walfordr]

I think its one of the following:

1.  He has Backup Server software running on the 2003 DC and want to move it to the new 2008 DC.

2.  DC does not = Domain Controller.  Maybe Datacenter?

3.  He is using the new template to create a new 2008 R2 backup server and would like to move the disks (vmdks) from the 2003 backup server to it.

[kiteizenga]

The W2K8 template was for the Domain Controller.  It was 40 GB Template only. I now using this template to roll out 3 other server's. I want to grab the disks from existing Windows Server 2003 server's

A Backup Server (with the W2K8 template) that will get BackUp Exec 2010 R2 with Deduplication will have the 8 Terabytes (actually 4 1.85GB disks) is for the back server. I want to grab the exisisting disks and transfer them over to the new W2K8 host I will create.

I have a virtual File Server that is currently W2K3 also eith a E (.99TB) and F (.99). I want to move these disk to a new virtual W2K8 Server.

I guess I am asking for something crazy? I just thought this would have been a feature tied into VSphere or ESXi.

[Walfordr]

I guess I am asking for something crazy? I just thought this would have been a feature tied into VSphere or ESXi.

Actually you are not asking for anything crazy.

All the task you have listed can be accomplished with vSphere/ESXi.

If the ESXi hosts that the 2008 server is on can see the storage/datastore that the old backup server and file server is on you can complete this in just a few steps.

See the earlier suggestions in this thread.  The only issue I could see is with the file server if you are sharing folders you may have to reshare them, because that info is stored in the OS partition.