Replacing a had drive in a server running OS X Server 10.3.9

[tomdkat]

I admin a network of Macs that use a 10.3.9 based OS X Server machine as a backup server. There is an iDisk account the server uses for iDisk backups and once a month I run a manual full back to CD. Tonight, the CD backup failed to run since the boot volume was basically full. Upon further inspection, I learned the boot volume is 6GB on a 20GB drive. *Sigh*

So, I'm looking to possibly replace the hard drive. I'm also considering replacing the entire server with more modern hardware but that's another discussion.

If I were to replace the 20GB hard drive in the server now with say a 60GB (we're talking PATA/IDE here) what would be the best way of doing it? We're talking about the boot volume now so I would need to move the OS and MBR and everything to the new drive.

What would you suggest?

Thanks!

Peace...

[ElDiabloConCaca]

1. Install the new 60GB drive in the machine alongside the existing drive.

2. Download Carbon Copy Cloner (or SuperDuper!, whichever you prefer -- I like CCC).

3. Use CCC to "clone" the 6GB boot partition to the new drive (or new partition on the new drive).

4. Set the Startup Disk preference pane to boot from the newly installed, newly cloned hard drive.

5. Verify that the server operates normally while booted from the new drive.

6. Remove the old drive (or simply disconnect it) and boot from the new drive again, once again verifying that everything works correctly and that mountpoints and shares and what-not are operating as expected.

If you chose to give the new drive a different name than the old drive, you may want to check shares and mountpoints to verify that they are mounting and sharing correctly from the new drive.

[tomdkat]

Thanks! I'll give that a try!

Peace...

[Go3iverson]

Diablo pretty much hit it on the head, though I'm a fan of the "modern hardware" idea!

One thing I would add. Look into getting two drives that are identical in spec (size, speed). Consider making them into a Mirror RAID (RAID 1) for that server's boot drive and then replacing the OS back on it in the steps mentioned earlier. This way you can "lose" a drive to failure and still be up and running.

Just my $0.02

Michael

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by Go3iverson

One thing I would add. Look into getting two drives that are identical in spec (size, speed). Consider making them into a Mirror RAID (RAID 1) for that server's boot drive and then replacing the OS back on it in the steps mentioned earlier. This way you can "lose" a drive to failure and still be up and running.

Ok, how do I create the Mirror RAID?

Peace...

[Go3iverson]

Install two like drives and use the disk utility application is the easiest way. It's pretty much drag and drop. You'll want to be sure that those two drives are data free. If they're not, there is a way to setup the mirror raid and rebuild in the background on Panther, but it's not for the faint of heart.

Michael

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by ElDiabloConCaca

3. Use CCC to "clone" the 6GB boot partition to the new drive (or new partition on the new drive).

So, I'm FINALLY getting around to doing this. I've got an 80GB drive installed and partitioned the way I want. I've got CCC downloaded and installed. It gave me the option of creating a disk image on the target drive or just cloning the source drive. I opted to clone and not create the disk image because the description of the disk image creation process stated a disk image would be created that I could resize to twice the size of the original drive and that will be smaller than the partition I manually created.

I'm in the process of cloning now. If you had to guess, do you think my choice not to create a disk image would be ok? I've never done this kind of thing on a Mac before so I'm trying to be as cautious as possible.

Thanks!

Peace...

[ElDiabloConCaca]

If you create a disk image, then all you have is a portable copy of your system drive which has to be restored to a drive in order to be bootable. You can't boot from a disk image.

If you just want to clone the old drive to the new one while retaining the ability to boot OS X, then yes, the clone operation is what you want.