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smackaysmith
Asked: 2011-02-03 18:03:06 +0800 CST

Migrate 3 terabytes of files to a new server windows 2003

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We have a new file server to handle the obscene amount of files generated by the company (PDFs, XLS, DOCs and JPGs). Files being moved to the new server total about 3tb. The problem is we can't take the company down for days to move the files. The other problem is the applications creating all these files have to reference previous files, so we can't simply point them to the new server. Also, there isn't an option to have the applications create files on the new server, but reference the old server for existing files.

The servers are x64 win2003 r2. Both servers are on the same subnet.

DFS doesn't work.

Is there an application that can handle this amount of data to copy the files over, throttle bandwidth, and do a 'merge'? By merge I mean constantly copying over newly created files until the two servers are synched.

windows migration

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Use robocopy to do the copy.

    Do an initial first push. Once that is done start the copy again. This will catch all the new/updated files and move them across. Keep doing this until the night of the actual cut over. On the cut over night tell all employees to be sure that all software is shutdown. Then run the robocopy script one last time, then power down the machine when it is done. Redirect the users to the new machine and you are done.

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  2. This is pretty much the canonical use of rsync. The amount of data isn't really a problem (for anything, really). Rsync has the ability to limit the amount of network bandwidth consumed (via the --bwlimit=n command line option), and rsync's raison d'etre is it's ability to transfer only the differences between the source and the destination, rather than re-transmitting lots of duplicate data -- which makes it perfect for this sort of staged synchronization that you are attempting.

    You have various options for running Rsync under Windows, including DeltaCopy or installing the command line tools under Cygwin.

    This isn't a particularly Windows-specific solution. Other folks may be able to offer better solutions in that arena.

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  3. For this amount of sync load, you will benefit from having a dedicated link between the 2 file servers, and a dedicated switch when adding more file servers. Hopefully this network segregation will also allow you to make the anti-virus back off.

    Also, take this opportunity to move old data into a read-only share.

    And to max out network/CPU/harddisk bandwidth, run more than one synchronisation job at once. You will have to monitor/measure/figure out how many jobs is optimal and how to group your folders.

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