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Move Exchange 2003 to SAN - 20.May2008 7:45:08 PM

tmoua

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We recently implemented Compellent's Storage Center in our environment and I would like to know best practice to moving Exchange 2003 over to the SAN. What utilities should I use? Robocopy or Eseutil?

Exchange 2003 is currently on the D partition. Can I just use ROBOCOPY to copy the whole D partition over to the volume on the SAN created for Exchange and change the D partition to another letter and then change the volume on the SAN to D? Is that best practice?

Thanks in advance.

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RE: Move Exchange 2003 to SAN - 22.May2008 6:38:31 PM

Sembee

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Why would you consider using either?
ESEUTIL is not the tool for this job, and robocopy certainly isn't.
Then you have to worry about telling Exchange the new location of the database.

Messy.

Just move the database files in the usual way to the new location and path names.
Keep it very simple.

Simon.

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(in reply to tmoua)

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RE: Move Exchange 2003 to SAN - 9.Jun.2008 1:05:24 PM

jassyca

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Not sure what might be meant by "move the databases in the usual way". So thought I'd throw in my 10 cents. (That's 2 cents, adjusted for inflation.

)

We moved our Exchange databases to our SAN a year or so ago. We did it by using Exchange itself to do the moving. First, we connected the server to the SAN and created a new volume for the server on the SAN. Made sure all that worked. (Copied a file to the new volume, opened the file, made a change, saved it, opened it again to verify the change was there, deleted it.) Once we had a warm fuzzy about the new SAN volume, we popped into the Exchange manager, created a new storage group which was on the SAN volume. Then we created a new mailbox store which was also on the SAN volume. After that, it was just a matter of telling Exchange to move the mailboxes from one mailbox store to another.

There are other ways you can move your databases to a new SAN.. but I'm lazy bum.

If I can get Exchange to do all the work, why not?

(in reply to Sembee)

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RE: Move Exchange 2003 to SAN - 12.Jun.2008 12:48:57 PM

consultOz

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From: Virginia, USA
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Simon is telling you make a right click on each Database and change the path by browsing it to the new location which will be SAN drive in this example, which is the simplest and right thing to do.
Exchange will dismount the store and take care of the rest for you. If you like to change the log files location as well, which you should you do the same on the SG level.
When I was reading the first post, I thought the exchange binaries were the question asked and if it can be moved to SAN, (which needed to be moved from local drive to SAN).
To be hones if you are trying to move into Cluster scenarios, the best way would be building a new cluster on the SAN according to best practices, move the mailboxes to the new cluster, and decommission the first server would be my way of doing this.
Good luck
Oz

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Good luck and Best Regards
Oz Ozugurlu
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http://smtp25.blogspot.com (Blog)

(in reply to tmoua)

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