Data Migration

radial · April 2012

Hi Guys,

I'm a long time user of WHS v1 but decided to give 2011 a try so I've built a test rig on an HP ML110 G6, boot drive 128GB Crucial M4 SSD, and have added 1 x 2 TB, 1 X 750 GB and 1 x 640 GB HDD's, installed DrivePoll and all working lovely.

What I want to know (as I cannot find any information on this) is what is the correct way to copy data in to the new server... With WHS v1 you always had to copy it directly in to a share and definitely not in to folders on the D drive as this would screw things up...

Has this changed in WHS 2011 i.e can I copy straight to directories in my pool: E:\ServerFolders\Music or do I still have to copy to the share: \\server\music?

Thanks for any help.

R.

dluis · April 2012

You just need to add the drives to the pool (it will not format the drive), then copy de directories(where your files are) in that disk to the hidden drivepool folder and it will start showing in the DrivePool disk. Do that to all disks, and in a few minutes you have it working.

If you copy from your disk to the DrivePool disk it will take a lot of time, depending how much data you have. The metod that I mention in the begging is the fastest.

dbailey75 · April 2012

If moving the disk from whs v1, are you deleting all the hidden folders that were part of the whs v1 implementation? But also, you may end up with serveral disk with the same share folder, so I would think you would need to do one disk at a time. knowing what to look at for, this would definitly be the fastest way, just make sure you backup you data.

I'm finally ready to move my whs 2011 in to for "production" use, but while testing, I picked up a couple drives, and moving data via the network, is slow going, but if any one is interested there's a really cool directoy sync tool called Freecommander, and they have a portable option that runs off a USB flash drive, no need to install on the local server OS.

radial · April 2012

Sorry I should have been clearer, my WHS v1 is still running and will continue to while I test 2011, I am going to be moving data over Ethernet on to the test machine to see how it all holds up, I wont be shifting drives over until I am happy with the new setup.

Thanks,

R.

saitoh183 · April 2012

Has this changed in WHS 2011 i.e can I copy straight to directories in my pool: E:\ServerFolders\Music or do I still have to copy to the share: \\server\music?

Thanks for any help.

R.

The answer it yes ...but only if your Music folder is part of the pool. If you noticed, DP creates poolpart folders(hidden) on each drive that is added to the pool. That contains whatever folder structure that is created in the pool. So first you would move the
E:\ServerFolders\Music to the pool using the dashboard and the option "Add Folder to pool" then go into the physical drive ..\poolpart{CLSID}\... and move your files into it.

radial · April 2012

Thanks saitoh183, I have already moved the folders to the pool using the dashboard, Protected OS Folders unticked so I can see them, the path you describe above does not exist...

I can see:

\$RECYCLE.BIN

\ServerFolders

\-Client Computer Backups
\-Documents

\-Music

\-Pictures

\-Recorded TV

\-Videos

\System Volume Information

Am I looking in the wrong place?

Many thanks,

R.

Shane · April 2012

Using DrivePool is a two-step process: add the drives you want in the pool, then add the folders you want to the pool. When you add a drive to the pool, DP creates a hidden PoolPart.identifier folder in that drive's root. So if you added E: drive to the pool, DP would create (for example) E:\PoolPart.4d4f34c9-3f30-45c0-9452-5c75b82983ab\ and use this hidden folder to store pooled content.

If you're moving files across a network, or if you're moving files from a non-pooled drive to a pooled drive, there is no reason to access these hidden folders; you should access the share (if you are on the WHS machine or a different one) or the pooldrive (if you are on the WHS machine), your choice.

If you're moving files from a non-pool area of a pooled drive to the pool (e.g. you have files in E:\mystuff that you want to move into the pool), a very quick way of doing this is to open explorer on WHS and move the files directly from E:\mystuff to E:\PoolPart.blahblah\mystuff rather than attempt to move them from E:\mystuff to P:\mystuff (P as in the Pool Drive). Attempting the latter has the unfortunate tendency to use move-via-copy.

saitoh183 · April 2012

Good Stuff Shane

dluis · April 2012

Shane just said what I was trying to say but in a much better way

radial · April 2012

Thank you Shane, I get what you are saying, but I still don't see the hidden folder... I am assuming it is because when I created the pool I opted to hide the actual drives in Explorer so the only drive I see is the pool drive (E:)..

Being as this is a test machine it's no biggie, I'll scrap the pool and re-create it without the drives hidden.

Many thanks,

R.

Shane · April 2012

Ah, that explains it. If you go into Disk Management, you can give the "hidden" drives new drive letters so that they can be accessed in Explorer.

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