In-Place Upgrade Windows 7 Professional to Windows Server 2008 R2

[EquineHero]

I've got a fully updated install of Windows 7 Professional, however I'm looking to add some server functions to my rig.

I have about 800GB of games downloaded and installed, as well as numerous personal files I'd rather not have to back up or reinstall, cause 800 gigs of stuff would take about 1,300 hours to re-download everything on my connection.Not to mention almost 300GB of movies and music that took 5-ish years to collect.

Is there ANY way to do an in place upgrade to Server 2008 R2?

Don't ask why or tell me why I shouldn't, please just answer the question.

Here are the full specs of my machine that may help with your answer:

CPU: Intel Xeon E3 1240 v1
GPU: nVidia GTX 1070
RAM: 16GB Avexir Core 1600MHz
PSU: 600W Corsair CX600
MOB: AsRock H77M
Primary disk: SanDick SSD Ultra 240GB
Secondary storage: 3x 500GB Seagate Ironwolf in RAID0
Tertiary storage: 1x 500GB Seagate Skyhawk
Chassis: Thermaltake N25 Dragon Scale
nVidia Driver Version 381.65 (most stable of the most recent)

 

[USAFRet]

Is there ANY way to do an in place upgrade to Server 2008 R2?

Don't ask why or tell me why I shouldn't, please just answer the question.

No.
That is a completely different architecture.
Wipe and reinstall.

 

[why_wolf]

Nope. Windows and Windows Server are not cross compatible in that way.

 

[USAFRet]

However....

Primary disk: SanDick SSD Ultra 240GB
Secondary storage: 3x 500GB Seagate Ironwolf in RAID0
Tertiary storage: 1x 500GB Seagate Skyhawk

This means that all of your movies and games and junk is NOT on the 240GB SSD OS drive. Does not have to be downloaded again.
For what is on the RAID 0, you'll probably have to completely rebuild that RAID 0. meaning all the data on it should be copied to elsewhere first.
But not "downloaded" again from the interwebs.

 

[ss202sl]

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd979563(v=ws.10).aspx

 

[EquineHero]

However....

Primary disk: SanDick SSD Ultra 240GB
Secondary storage: 3x 500GB Seagate Ironwolf in RAID0
Tertiary storage: 1x 500GB Seagate Skyhawk

This means that all of your movies and games and junk is NOT on the 240GB SSD OS drive. Does not have to be downloaded again.
For what is on the RAID 0, you'll probably have to completely rebuild that RAID 0. meaning all the data on it should be copied to elsewhere first.
But not "downloaded" again from the interwebs.

That's correct, but the 800GB of programs are registered in the registry and I do not have time (or motivation) to go through regfiles.net and redownload all of them.

These drives were extremely expensive at the time of purchase (~$100/drive), and they don't make them anymore (they're all 1TB+ now).

Just a thought: After deleting all of my restore points the 800GB used turned into 615GB...silly System Restore taking all my space...

From Microsoft Technet:

-Upgrades to Windows Server 2008 R2 from the following operating systems are not supported:

--Windows® 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows XP, Windows Vista®, Windows Vista Starter, or Windows 7

Also, it's software RAID, striped in Windows Disk Management.

 

[USAFRet]

No one said anything about not reusing the drives. They're fine.
I'm just saying the RAID 0 config will not survive the OS install. The array would need to be rebuilt, and then the data reloaded.

And they do still sell 1TB Ironwolf drives. $65 at Amazon.
Seagate Skyhawk, 1TB for $54.


Bottom line - You can't do an inplace upgrade from Win 7 to Server2008.
Reinstall the OS, and everything else.

 

[USAFRet]

And as an aside, whatever is on that RAID 0 array need a full backup anyway. RAID 0 is one sneeze away from a completely corrupted volume, with total data loss.

 

[EquineHero]

Is there ANY way to do an in place upgrade to Server 2008 R2?

Don't ask why or tell me why I shouldn't, please just answer the question.

No.
That is a completely different architecture.
Wipe and reinstall.

No one said anything about not reusing the drives. They're fine.
I'm just saying the RAID 0 config will not survive the OS install. The array would need to be rebuilt, and then the data reloaded.

And they do still sell 1TB Ironwolf drives. $65 at Amazon.
Seagate Skyhawk, 1TB for $54.


Bottom line - You can't do an inplace upgrade from Win 7 to Server2008.
Reinstall the OS, and everything else.

No, they don't sell 500GB Ironwolf or 500GB SkyHawk anymore. 1TB is the minimum. Re-read my post.

If it was harware RAID it might, since it's just an emulated disk.

"And as an aside, whatever is on that RAID 0 array need a full backup anyway. RAID 0 is one sneeze away from a completely corrupted volume, with total data loss."

I'm not a fan of Western Digital, as you may have noticed. I've had far too many of their drives fail. Before I had these Seagate drives I was using WD Reds and WD Purples.

I use the SkyHawks for FRAPS because they are write-optimized, and I use the IronWolfs because they are just. So. Damn. Good.

Honestly I was more curious of if I could upgrade to Server, but it's not worth the trouble, so I just copied an existing Branding folder from my PowerEdge T20 that's actually running Server.

Fun fact: you can copy C:\Windows\Branding from any system.

 

[USAFRet]

Yeah, sorry. I somehow read yours as 1TB Ironwolf drives.
My bad.

And I also have an array of Ironwolfs. 4 x 4TB in my Qnap NAS box, RAID 5.

 

[EquineHero]

Yeah, sorry. I somehow read yours as 1TB Ironwolf drives.
My bad.

And I also have an array of Ironwolfs. 4 x 4TB in my Qnap NAS box, RAID 5.

My T20 is awaiting a HUGE upgrade from its current dual RAID0 arrays (4x 2TB IronWolf). I'm saving up for 4 10TB IronWolf drives, but those are ~350 a pop. Last time I spent that much I dropped 4 Benjamins on a 1070, lol.

My NAS is shared with like 5 other people so I have no room to back up my current 1.5TB RAID0 array, hence spending $1200 on IronWolf drives.

For some reason I feel like Seagate is more premium than Western Digital. Probably because less people use Seagate.