[SOLVED] What is the best way transfer or copy data from one storage only drive to another storage drive being added?

[SupportTech2001]

I currently have D and E partitions on one physical drive, I ran out of space and now each will have their own physical drive. This is a Windows Server environment.

 

[SkyNetRising]

What is the best way transfer or copy data from one storage only drive to another storage drive being added?

What are your options for copying?
Do you have any specific requirements?

If no such requirements, then generally just copy/paste.

 

[LinuxDevice]

Personally, when I do something like this, I pull the drive from the Windows system and work with the old and new disk on a Linux system, but there is a learning curve to that. A friend of mine who runs a PC support business uses cloning software which runs on Windows unless there is a drive error involved, and in that case, the work gets transferred to Linux. There are a number of cloning apps you can get for Windows, just search Google for it.

 

[SupportTech2001]

The data is being used live by users so I am sure it will need to be done after hours. I want to know if I can do this with little to no downtime.
The client is worried about the disruption of service. I mainly worried about the connections and mapping to programs and not being copied also.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

You need to use an imaging solution such as Macrium reflect. In a server environment you can't just copy/paste across volume boundaries without losing permission flags and such, you need to do a proper image copy. If you then ensure that the volumes are remapped the same name as they are now you'll be golden.

 

[USAFRet]

This could be very easy, or reasonably difficult, depending on the environment. Which we out here know nothing about.
There is no singular "best way".

Some things to think about:

• Amount of data. 10GB is different than 50TB
• What is this actual data? A bunch of funny cat videos, or a SQL database?
• What is your relationship to the owner of this system and data? Your employer, your client, you...?
• Downtime...Required. Schedule this, and notify the users. "The system will be offline Sunday evening from 5PM to 11PM for maintenance"
• You DO have a known good 100% backup of the whole thing, right?
• If you use a tool like Macrium mentioned above, you'll need the Server version ($$)
• Plan this out. Document it. Don't just wing it.
• Have you done something like this before?