SQL Server moving to larger drive

I have a Windows 2003 server with SQL Server 2005 installed. The
server is on small drive and we would like to upgrade to much larger
harddrives. I've been hearing of problems using Ghost to get an image
and placing the image onto the new drive. I think this is more of a
Windows 2003 problem, but this server is for nothing but the SQL
Server databases. Does anyone have a clear method of moving this
server to the larger drives?

TIA.

Re: SQL Server moving to larger drive

scoots987 (scoots987@gmail.com) writes:
> I have a Windows 2003 server with SQL Server 2005 installed. The
> server is on small drive and we would like to upgrade to much larger
> harddrives. I've been hearing of problems using Ghost to get an image
> and placing the image onto the new drive. I think this is more of a
> Windows 2003 problem, but this server is for nothing but the SQL
> Server databases. Does anyone have a clear method of moving this
> server to the larger drives?

Why not just keep the SQL Server installation on the current drive,
and move only the databases to the new drives?

This KB article may be helpful:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2240 71

--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@sommarskog.se

Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/downlo ads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/previousversions/books .mspx

Re: SQL Server moving to larger drive

On Nov 27, 4:40 pm, Erland Sommarskog wrote:
> scoots987 (scoots...@gmail.com) writes:
> > I have a Windows 2003 server with SQL Server 2005 installed. The
> > server is on small drive and we would like to upgrade to much larger
> > harddrives. I've been hearing of problems using Ghost to get an image
> > and placing the image onto the new drive. I think this is more of a
> > Windows 2003 problem, but this server is for nothing but the SQL
> > Server databases. Does anyone have a clear method of moving this
> > server to the larger drives?
>
> Why not just keep the SQL Server installation on the current drive,
> and move only the databases to the new drives?
>
> This KB article may be helpful:http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN -US;224071
>
> --
> Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esq...@sommarskog.se
>
> Books Online for SQL Server 2005 athttp://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/down loads/books...
> Books Online for SQL Server 2000 athttp://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/previousversions/boo ks.mspx

Great and obvious solution that I didn't even think about. However,
the server has a RAID configuration and wonder how to do that? If the
databases are on a separate drive can this drive be RAID and the
operating system on non RAID? Or other configuration?

Thanks!

Re: SQL Server moving to larger drive

scoots987 (scoots987@gmail.com) writes:
> Great and obvious solution that I didn't even think about. However,
> the server has a RAID configuration and wonder how to do that? If the
> databases are on a separate drive can this drive be RAID and the
> operating system on non RAID? Or other configuration?

Of course, you can have one drive in your system which is a RAID, and one
which is not. I would sort of expect that it is possible to add more
disk to a RAID as well, but maybe there has to be room for them in
the cabinet. (I'm really outside my field of expertise here.)

What RAID configuration do you use? The recommended for SQL Server is
RAID1+0.

--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@sommarskog.se

Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/downlo ads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/previousversions/books .mspx