moving data from physical to guest VM

[fafa24]

Dear all,

I want to move files from a physical server not attached to SAN (iSCSI) to a ESX 3.5 host which is attached to an iSCSI SAN (Dell MD3000i). The physical server is a file server serving for roaming profiles, home shares and other network drives, which are mapped by login script. The pyhsical server is a Windows 2003 Server box with two partition C: and D:. I only need to move to the SAN and later to the VM the D drive. All data are there. I don't think in this situation a conversion is the best way, since I don't want to take over all the OS stuff.

My plan is as follows:

-attach the physical server to the iSCSI SAN and create there a LUN. Map this LUN as E: drive for example

-copy all the contents from the 😧 drive to the E: drive. In this case I move the data to the SAN but nothing will change for UNC path.

-setup a VM on the host, maybe with Windows 2008 Server as a guest (don't have decided yet)

-create in the guest a RDM file pointing to the data I moved.

-rename the guest VM to the same name as the physical server had and take offline the physical server

the goal should be to have a minimal impact to the users and no headache with changing network drive mapping and login scripts.

What do you think? Will this plan work. Is there a better method to do?

Thank you

Edy

[lockenkeyster]

I want to move files from a physical server not attached to SAN (iSCSI) to a ESX 3.5 host which is attached to an iSCSI SAN (Dell MD3000i). The physical server is a file server serving for roaming profiles, home shares and other network drives, which are mapped by login script. The pyhsical server is a Windows 2003 Server box with two partition C: and D:. I only need to move to the SAN and later to the VM the D drive. All data are there. I don't think in this situation a conversion is the best way, since I don't want to take over all the OS stuff.

Converter can be used to move over only one drive (in this case D:) if that is all that is required.

My plan is as follows:

...

...

the goal should be to have a minimal impact to the users and no headache with changing network drive mapping and login scripts.

What do you think? Will this plan work. Is there a better method to do?

Honestly, the best thing to do here would be to use Converter IF your goal is minimal impact to your users. Otherwise, there are replication techniques on the Windows side you can use to do this. For instance, setting up a second VM with the same amount of storage and same precreated shares, you can use either Robocopy or DFRS (depending on bandwidth, Active Directory setup, etc.) to migrate the data after setting up the VM to your liking. Once the data is replicated, you can rename and reboot both Windows servers so that users now point to the new one.

Hope that helps.

[fafa24]

Can I use converter to convert a data drive only and attach it later to a existing VM? I didn't know it's possible.

Edy

[lockenkeyster]

Yes, I know for certain that this is possible using the standalone converter utility - I've done this a few times to get a fresh OS build but with a quick data migration. I believe when you get to the disk configuration options you need to switch to "Advanced" to deselect the OS disk. Choose not to start the VM after migration completion (since this will fail). Once migration is complete you can attach the new .vmdk to an existing VM to see the data. You will need to recreate the shares within Windows.

[bulletprooffool]

Conevertor is the easy way to do this, but you will have to bear in mind that once the conversion is done, the data is 'point in tim' from the source.

If your users will continue to modify the data from the source, the plan you have mapped out will allow you to replicate the changes after your initial copy easily.

The last alternative is to go with convertor, present the new VMDK to a temp machine and run your final differential copy to that, before shutting down your server and attching the disk to your new production VM (I am assuming you want to re-use hostname etc)

[fafa24]

Thank you for your answers. It was very helpful and I think I will convert just the D drive.

Thanks

Edy

[fafa24]

It did convert just the D drive and attach it as a second VM hard drive to the existing vm. It worked fine without any problem

But I have now a follow-up question. I use backupexe integration script with VCB, when I do mount this VM (fileserver), it does only mount the C drive and not the converted D drive too. I use the command "browse-start.bat esxi fileserver"

I have not tried yet a FullVM backup, but I guess it won't backup the D drive as well.

Any idea to overcome this issue?

Thank you

Edy