Replacing HDDs in Windows Home Server v1

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Larson

Larson

Member
Nov 10, 2015
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Can someone help me remember best practice for this? I've got a WHSv1 with five HDDs: 1-640GB HDD (primary, OS), 3-320GB HDDs, and 1-160GB HDD. The server has been used primarily for PC backups, so I'm not worried about Shared folders or third-party plugins. What is important is my backups and accounts. I have a total storage capacity of 1.6GB with only 95GB (5%) free space left, so I need to increase my storage space a little. Questions are these:

1- If I remember right, your largest HDD must be the primary/OS drive, right? I know there is a reason that I made the 640GB the first drive. If so, how do I replace this first/primary/OS HDD? If not, I'll just replace the 160GB HDD with a 1TB HDD?

2- Since I only have 95GB (5%) space left, I'm planning on copying my PC backups folder (D:\folders\{00008086-058D-4C89-AB57-A7F909A47AB4}) to an external drive, deleting this folder from the server so that I have plenty of room to replace a drive, replace the drive, and then copy my PC backups folder back to the server. Will this work? Is there a better way?

3- Is there a website that anybody knows of that provide solid steps on this? I haven't been able to find one.

Thanks for all your help,
James
 
Patrick

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
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James - a bit rusty on this but if I recall:
  • Free up any space that you can.
  • Remove your smallest drive and wait for the data to be distributed on the other drives. Using the smallest drive will mean less data needs to get copied.
  • Install new larger drive.
  • Continue with other drives.
Maybe someone has a better idea but that is what I would try.
 
P

pyro_

Active Member
Oct 4, 2013
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You don't have to have the os drive as the latest anymore. Just remove your smallest drive that is not the os drive from the pool and add the new one as Patrick said. Also don't think that whs1 plays nice with 4K drives though this might have been fixed

Btw if you have the space and extra sata ports just add the new drive to the pool and let the system worry about where to put the data
 
Larson

Larson

Member
Nov 10, 2015
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Thanks Patrick and everyone so much for your replies! Very helpful!!

Pyro, I'll have to check and see if I have another SATA port available, but I think I already maxed out my board. Thanks!

Lost-Benji, I whole heartedly agree. :) I'm in the process of building a Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials machine with 4TB drives, but I think I'm going to run out of server space before I get it all built; my plan is to add a 500GB or maybe a 1TB drive to my WHSv1 server just to buy me a little more time. Thanks again.

Chris, thanks for the steps. Do you or anyone else recommend the Disk Management for Windows Home Server Add-In?

Thanks again everybody,
James
 
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