Moving HD's to new WHS 2011 build after motherboard upgrade

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

dar124

New Member
Mar 31, 2016
16
0
1
Cleveland, OH
I've been using a HP dc7600 motherboard in a generic case running WHS 2011 as my "server" for a while now. I have been very happy with this set up, but the equipment is getting a bit old. I've already upgraded most of the other PC's in the house, so it's probably time to work on upgrading this server hardware. I've put it off because everything has been working good. But it's gonna be better to be a bit proactive and get something newer set up on my own schedule instead of being with out a server (and all my files, etc) for a couple of weeks while I get parts, build a new machine, configure the OS, etc.

I'm at a point now where I think that I've got most of the parts that I'd need, so I've started the upgrade!!! I have a Lenovo m700 PC and a Cooler Master case sitting around. So I figured, why not combine them for this upgrade!!! The Lenovo board will be newer / better / faster and the Cooler Master case will allow me to fit more HD's inside. Over the weekend, I got the Lenovo board wired up in the Cooler Master case and WHS 2011 installed. I also got most of the WHS Windows Updates taken care of and Lenovo drivers updated. So I'm at the point now of moving the 3 2TB drives over to the new server.

Initially I thought that I would be able to just move the 2TB drives over to the new server (giving them the same drive letters that they had in the old server) and then set up the folders as shared folders. But, when I did the OS install, the only drive in the server was the SSD for the OS and WHS 2011 created the standard "documents, pictures, videos, music" shared folders on the OS drive. So when I connect the 3 2TB drives there are already going to be those same "documents, pictures, videos, music" shared folders on the server.

The first time setting up WHS 2011 I only had my media on a 1TB drive on my desktop PC. So I just moved the folders that WHS created from the C drive over to the 2TB drives when I added them. But now I'll be adding drives with existing data on them. I'm sure that I'm overthinking this and there is a simple process for this. But before I start removing folders and adding TB drives, I figured that I'd reach out for a bit of assistance with adding these drives into the new server.

Thanks in advance.
 

marcoi

Well-Known Member
Apr 6, 2013
1,532
288
83
Gotha Florida
I visualized my WHS2011 when I was running it. I've upgraded to server 2012 essentials since then, still a VM running on ESXI host. As for HDD, might be good idea to upgrade the drives as well. Get two larger ones. That is what I did when I moved from whs2011 to 2012 essentials. I got two 6TB drives, one for data and one for server backup. I also used an external 5TB HDD to copy the content during the move and i keep that external hdd as a backup with my data on it and update it ever few months. Final measure i backup my files to cloud backup service. :)

what i find is the most important thing when messing with WHS is protecting your data. Make sure you have backups in case testing a HDD move screws up. etc.
 

dar124

New Member
Mar 31, 2016
16
0
1
Cleveland, OH
Thanks for the reply marcoi. Unfortunately I'm not able to purchase new hard drives at this time. And my 2TB drives are right around a year old, so they've got a lot of life left in them.

I do have a backup copies of my important files, I'm just looking for the easiest way to transfer these existing drives over to the new server.
 

dataoscar

Member
Dec 2, 2013
68
10
8
My experience has always been that you cannot just move the hard drives. The recommended way is to do a full server backup, and then a restore to the new hardware.
 

dar124

New Member
Mar 31, 2016
16
0
1
Cleveland, OH
Alright, so here's my update after working on this server over the weekend.

I came across this article last week: Transfering data drives from old WHS2011 install to a new server - Installation and Migration I followed the info in the link it worked flawlessly!!!

I installed the drives in my server and changed around a few of the drive letters to match what the drive letters were in the old server. Then renamed the folders on the 2TB drives that I just installed to "Documents old", "Videos old", Pictures old", etc. After that, I moved the shared folders that were created on the C:\ drive when I did the new WHS install to the corresponding 2TB drives. So the drives would have a "Documents" and a "Documents old" folder on it, the same for Videos, Pictures, etc. And then I copied the data from "Documents old" to the Documents folder I moved over from C:\. And finally I deleted all the "old" folders.

It worked like a charm. No issues at all. I've got all my original folders, with data intact shared over my network.

I still have to do some cable management and get the final few add-ins installed. But other than that I'm back up and running WHS 2011 on my new hardware!!!
 

dataoscar

Member
Dec 2, 2013
68
10
8
I may have misread your initial post. In the new system, are your backups showing for your clients? That's the issue I had when migrating from old WHS to new WHS box. There was a guid that was generated for the system and the backups contained that guid. It was a while ago so I may be mistaken.
 

dar124

New Member
Mar 31, 2016
16
0
1
Cleveland, OH
I had a mini external drive set up on my older server for WHS to save the back ups for the 3 PC's in the house. I haven't moved that drive over to the new server yet. But I've never had a need for (or really known what to do) with the back ups that WHS creates. I guess the times I've needed to reimage a computer, I've also upgraded hardware so I don't think that I would have been able to use the backups anyways??

I'll probably just clean the drive off, move it over to the new server and let WHS save the back ups starting from this point on. If that makes sense??
 

marcoi

Well-Known Member
Apr 6, 2013
1,532
288
83
Gotha Florida
The PC backups are good for two things. Bare metal restore of pc and you can also mount the backup and restore individual files from backup drives. I've used both in the past.
 

dar124

New Member
Mar 31, 2016
16
0
1
Cleveland, OH
The PC backups are good for two things. Bare metal restore of pc and you can also mount the backup and restore individual files from backup drives. I've used both in the past.

Hmmm, ok. The couple of times I've needed to do a "bare metal restore" of my PC I've just reimage it from scratch. And I don't store any data (or at least much data) on my PC's. It's all on my server. So I shouldn't need backups for individual files.

But thinking about it now, being able to restore the PC to how it was 2 days ago might be beneficial. And quicker than installing windows, activating windows, windows updates, installing programs, etc. Is there a guide out there for the process of restoring from WHS backups?? Might be something to look into a bit more. Or even to use for backups of my server OS. That would save a bit of configuring if I ever needed to reimage it.