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Patrick Pellegrino
Asked: 2012-07-17 06:56:50 +0800 CST

Full backup, files copy or VSS for disk replacement on a Windows 2003 server?

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I have to replace all disks of a Raid 5 volume for more space on a Windows 2003.

I want to see what is the more reliable method to backup or move data of this volume (about 800 Gb).

In first I was planning to robocopy all files on a external USB Drive. But I really not sure that's the best method for that kind of job.

I'm thinking to make a full backup of that Server/volume and then make the restore. But what about a remote VSS backup on the External drive ? A good method, feasible ?

backup hard-drive windows-server-2003 vss robocopy

1 Answers

  1. I'm a big fan of robocopy, and use it all the time to move large amounts of data.
    I hope you already have a backup of this data. You should not need another backup to move data like this.
    A lot of hardware based array controllers will let you remove/replace the disks, one at a time, not doing the next disk until the former has finished re-striping, and then expand the LUN from within the array controller. Review/research your controller model. Then you can use DISKPART from the OS point of view to make the NTFS partition within that LUN larger.
    The DISKPART commands would be something like:
    list disk
    select disk 99 (where 99 is the number of the disk)
    list partition
    select partition 99 (where 99 is the number of the partition)
    extend

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