Question Inherited nightmare... Server 21012 R2 on the SLOWEST disk I've ever seen - need to clone to SSD

[wheezer]

As the title infers, I 'inherited a nightmare'. In use: a Server 2012 R2 system on a terribly under-powered system that I've 'pushed' about as far as I can go.. and since there's NO interest in doing much for this hardware (unfortunately), I 'need' to do as much as I can "performance-wise" with this AMD . My thoughtwas: 'clone' the OS to an SSD (Samsung Evo 850) so it might 'feel' as though there's some 'gumption' to this system. As I think was mentioned in this forum on another post (which I read just as bit ago) my thought was to simply use Samsung Migration software to 'clone' to this Samsung SSD.. but before I make any presumptions about this, I figured it might be wise to post a question: Earlier, when I first got my mitts on this, because ALL the hard disks in this system were 'aging', as well as 'way too full', my very first efforts with this server was to install and create a 'storage pool', using 4 W/D 4TB Red drives (NAS class) so at least they have sufficient 'room to move' (Y'shoulda seen it before.. OMG..).. But how does this "intent to clone" possibly or potentially affect anything surrounding this storage pool? My thought was since this 'pool' is all controlled by the Server 2012 OS, simply cloning would be the fastest (and cheapest) means to kick it in the butt. But then it occurred to me that I'd better ask whether of not my presumption was accurate or if I was just fooling myself. Whaddya all think?
BTW: nothing else will change 'hardware-wise' OTHER THAN cloning to the SSD. And I suppose I could just "give it a go" because the original system will be undisturbed, but thought I'd defer to input, nonetheless....

 

[drtweak]

Use Macrium Reflect to scan. The new versions require you to register (7.2 and newer) if you can find a 7.1 or older you can just do a 30 day trial and then close the OS to that drive.

As it is a OS Controlled pool it won't matter if you clone it to another drive.

And I feel you. A clinic i use to manage, the old IT guy was running their domain controller, attempted roaming profiles, and other items, on a dell server that had the VERY FIRST Xeon 64bit CPU's with 4 Gigs of ram, a 13 year old SATA drive, and NO Redundancy and NO Backup! It was crazy! The first time i rebooted the damn thing it took 30 minutes!!! And they had a nice Dell R530 with a 10 Core CPU and 32 GB of RAM doing NOTHING, that i setup as a VM server and moved it over to that. Reboots now only took 1 minute and didn't have to be rebooted every other day.

 

[USAFRet]

Cloning the current situation to a faster drive only means it is on a faster drive.
That may or may not fix your issue.

If the current setup is crappy, all you're doing is moving a crappy setup to a faster drive.

Discover the actual problem. If it is simply a case of a slow drive, fine.
But if it is something else, cloning to an SSD is not the fix you're looking for.


And assuming this is a business system, the money spent for a Macrium workstation or server license is money well spent.

 

[wheezer]

Hmm... well, from your lips to THEIR ears.. (if only). I'd LOVE to have them buy (or let me build them) a "real server", but they seem to be phenomenally hesitant, so I'm at a bit of a quandary, here. I've been through this system with as much attentiveness as I can muster and I actually see nothing much really "wrong" OTHER THAN this aging boot disk (Oh, yeah... and this unbelievably limited dual-core processor - heh... forgot to mention THAT), but thank God they let me install the storage pool, at the very least. IMHO, the OS is ultimately of no real concern; push comes to shove I can re-load Server 2012, so ultimately it is simply the data I am concerned about. FYI: This is a 'non-profit' with limited resources, so I guess I can understand their 'hesitation' - to a point. But at what point does this necessarily become 'emergent' for them..(?) (cringe)
I have NO idea what the 'retiree' who did THIS had in his brain, but I DO have an opinion (and I'll just leave it there..). To the best of my assessment, until I CAN convince them of new base hardware, I am really left with trying to give this a 'boost' in any way I can.. so the SSD is simply a 'crutch' in the meantime.
I'm gonna give it a 'go' and simply clone to the Samsung Evo. Hell, at present, at least it will 'boot' in under 10 minutes. I just don't want to be left in a position to have to rebuild this whole mess in a "time crush" situation when they will NOT invest much money NOW when they should. But that's just me... and I just contract my opinions and my help.

 

[wheezer]

Use Macrium Reflect to scan. The new versions require you to register (7.2 and newer) if you can find a 7.1 or older you can just do a 30 day trial and then close the OS to that drive.

As it is a OS Controlled pool it won't matter if you clone it to another drive.

And I feel you. A clinic i use to manage, the old IT guy was running their domain controller, attempted roaming profiles, and other items, on a dell server that had the VERY FIRST Xeon 64bit CPU's with 4 Gigs of ram, a 13 year old SATA drive, and NO Redundancy and NO Backup! It was crazy! The first time i rebooted the damn thing it took 30 minutes!!! And they had a nice Dell R530 with a 10 Core CPU and 32 GB of RAM doing NOTHING, that i setup as a VM server and moved it over to that. Reboots now only took 1 minute and didn't have to be rebooted every other day.

OH JEEZ...Yeh.. .I remember those.. There are a few people who still have the concept that those old XEONs somehow define 'capable power', even now... (um... arguably NOT).
But, the law firm I also service has (what I presume to be ) the virtual 'clone' of that R530 from what you say. But... Y'know what REALLY disturbs me? Places like these that have the resources WILL NOT spend the bucks to protect their data no matter what you say or can prove to them. FRUSTRATING!! SH.... !!
Y'know, I have just one more year until I can retire, and - man... I cannot wait. I'm goin' fishin' for about 45 days afterwards...
But... POSSIBLY my frustration with this 'non-profit' is tainting my attitude right now...

 

[USAFRet]

Backup procedures - Read here:

What is your backup situation at home? What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong... forums.tomshardware.com

Now...that may seem complex and not necessary.
Nothing could be further from the truth.

Once set up, it is all automated. Takes me exactly zero time for a nightly backup.

And that entire setup completely justified its cost a couple of months ago, when one of my SSDs died. a 960GB SanDisk, 605GB data on it.
It was dead dead dead. Why? Don't know, and mostly don't care.

Slot in a new drive, click click click...all 605GB data, recovered exactly as it was at 4AM that morning when it ran its nightly Incremental backup.
And Bonus for a law firm...with a series of properly set up Incremental or Differential backups, you can recover data as it was in the past. I could recover an individual file as it was last week.

Boss - "OK, I can't find the Jones car accident file! WTF happened? That is a big client. Heads are gonna roll!"
You - "No prob, Boss...(clickety click)...It was apparently deleted last Wednesday, but here is the copy from Tuesday."

A law firm without backups is simply criminal. One of these days, a drive WILL die. Taking all that data with it.

And while you may think reinstalling the OS is of no real concern, it is.
Reinstall, and rebuilding the whole configuration may take a couple of days. During which time everyone is down.
Recovery from a valid backup may take an hour of downtime.

At $1000/hour for the office...which speaks to the boss's bottom line?

 

[wheezer]

Well AT LEAST they listened to me re: backup... Got 'er covered, in that respect. Sometimes the "squeaky wheel" is actually heard...
My guess is that when I mentioned "..potential liabilities in the double-digit millions.." it MIGHT have stirred their consciousness...