How do I upgrade raid1

I've got a dell poweredge 2550 win 2k server using raid 1 mirrioring two 20 gig hard drives. the drives are near full capacity so I went and got 2 new larger drives. My question is How do I implement the new drives I'm thinking that I just take out 1 of the 20 gig drives and put in the newer one and give it time to copy all the data to the new drive and then after that take out the other old drive and replace with the 2nd new drive. Is this the correct procedure? I can't find any documentation from the server I guess the tech that installed it here before I started working took it with him or tossed it. So any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Rockin_Roland.

 

No...this method won't work...the drives have to be identical to be placed in a mirror.

Is this a system volume? (ie OS on this drive) Is so, you will have a tough time upgrading this! (downtime for a re-installation)

If not, things are slightly better. All you will have to do is boot into the RAID controller's BIOS, and create a new array with your new drives. Once that is done, you can copy the data over through windows explorer.

Let us know if you need any more help!

 

This is a system volume, all our data and OS all sit on this mirrored C: drive. Ok then I've got another question for you. Since this server has 4 drive bays and only 2 are currently being used. Can I put the new drives in the other bays then boot into the raid controller create the new array on those drives then copy everything over thru windows explorer?
Or would a better method be copying all data to a backup tape drive, create the new array and restore data from tape?

How can I be sure that its a system volume by the way I think that it is. Since there aren't any other drives except shared folders.
Thanks again for any help u can provide me.

 

Here is something you could try.

Break the mirrored pair.
Remove the secondary drive.
Install one of your new drives as secondary.
Clone (Acronis TrueImage) your primary drive (old) to your new secondary drive.
Make the new cloned drive your primary drive, remove your old drive and boot the system.
Then install your second new drive
Boot and establish the mirror.

Seems like this should work.

 

The $700 for Acronis Server edition is to steep to get approved in this small business installation will the 15 day trial version allow me complete access to do this?

 

Why do you need server edition? The single user copy is around $50.

 

This is for a Win2k server, wouldn't it make since to use the server edition?

 

Not really......we are simply speaking of cloning one systems hard drive. I don't believe there is any attempt to differentiate between a server or a workstation in the cloning process. But, I'll have to check the site to be sure.

 

Well....I checked out the site and it is not clear if the workstation product will work on a server for cloning. I guess you'll have to call their tech support to find out for sure. You could also explore Ghost disk cloning.

 

well thanks for your help jconstan I appreciate it I'm looking further into both of the products you recommened.

 

Just wanted to know if anyone else has any suggestions?