9 June 2008 - 1:05Big Bad Filer Part 1

My current filer server runs Windows 2003 server, and has a 850GB single volume spanned across multiple disks. While this allows me maximum storage space, it fails to protect my data.

As time goes on I have been getting more and more worried about a possible hard disk failure. With my current setup, 1 faulty disk and I loose all my data.

The plan is to recreate the volume using 5×250GB drives with raid 5. This will not only make my data fault tolerant, but will also increase my storage capacity to 1TB.

[update] The backup has begun, and I suspect its going to take a couple of days just to copy the movies. I haven’t started sorting the television shows as of yet, but I am sure its going to be a pain in the ass and take just as long to copy to the other filer.
Pics of the process to be posted soon. But first things first I need to backup. Thanks in part to good timing I have been able to burrow my buddy Joe’s file server while he is in NY.

[update-update] Final stage of the backup is underway. Thats right by the time I get home from work the entire contents of my filer should be transfered onto the borrowed one and I’ll be ready to rebuild.