Home Forums Discussions Problems Server Disk Space Issues

Hello,
Due to a large amount of scanned in patient data and records, we are approaching the end of space that is on the AC server. I think about two to three months left. The server will not support any more physical drives. The installed drives are RAID 5 for both an OS partition and a data partition, so simply replacing the drives with bigger ones really isn't an option.

I inquired to AC support as to whether the "import items" folder could be located on another system or moved and was told that is not possible (would be a great feature to add!) and that the "import items" had to be located in the same directory as the AC app on the server. I was told it could be reinstalled into a different directory or drive with appropriate space, as long as it was an "internal" drive. USB or eSATA drives they said would not work. Nor would network drives.

I hoped that one of the gurus on the forum might have a unique suggestion that might help us avoid having to purchase a new server. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Tom
Southern Illinois

can't you simply buy matching drives of increased capacity? True, you usually can't replace just one drive with an increased capacity in a RAID setup but you should be able to replace all of them at once. either (1) clone both drives at one upgrade with Acronis or similar software or (2) turn off RAID, make sure system works, clone primary drive onto larger drive, turn back on RAID

See this discussion at Experts-exchange:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Storage/Hard_Drives/Q_26425868.html

Thanks for the reply. I unfortunately don't have an account or CC to use to sign up for E-E. Maybe it is time to look into that.

One issue with new drives is that in order to buy the Dell drives with the appropriate connectors, it is likely going to cost close to one third the cost of a new server!

The server in question is also a domain controller and runs another DB app, and is the file/printer server for the office too.

I have used Ghost for imaging before, but never Acronis, and haven't particularly had good luck with Ghost on RAID. Imaging seems to me to be a scary proposition and has a lot of potential for failure. I also do not have any disk to image to, as the intermediary location when going from old disk set to new disk set in the same system.

I'm also very hesitant to modify the existing RAID config. Are you suggesting turning RAID off and then adding it again after swapping drives? It would seem to me that any modification to the current RAID set will kill my existing drives and render the server unusable. Do I misunderstand? I am not a RAID expert by any means.

Thanks for your advice!
Tom

Tom, I hope you take this the wrong way, but it sounds a little like you want your cake and eat it to. There is going to be a cost in this project, and it may even be a big cost.

The exchange answer was very good, and if you do not have a full time IT, I don't know how anyone lives without it. This is the perfect question to throw up there and allow experts to walk you through this venture.

I am not sure what these connectors are. Hard drives are dirt cheap now. I am guessing you must have at least three drives given you have RAID5. Are these SATA cables? How are they expensive? Did your last drives have SATA cables or different "connectors?"

This has no effect on the issue.

The OS sees the drives as one big drive. I am not sure why you are having issues imaging a RAID. I would not use Ghost, but that is just my preference. I would use Acronis, and it would need to be server capable. Here is where the cake comes in. You say you can't image because you don't have an intermediary location. Well, you need one, so if you are going to solve this problem you will need to get an external USB or eSATA drive. They are not that expensive.

I am the first to say I am not a RAID expert either (those are found on Experts-Exchange). If you remove drives (say a mirror) and then put them back, you should be fine. If you remove drives, then add drives, change your existing RAID card to build a new array, and THEN put in your old drives, the RAID card would likely destroy the drive info as it would not be configured for those drives, and you would have to build a new array.

The best and probably only option is to do a complete image of the drives, remove them, add larger drives, build a new RAID array, restore the image. You may need special software to expand the image. It is much easier with a RAID1.

It sounds like you have a Dell. Is it still under warranty? Can you purchase an extended warranty? If so, I would, and I would let Dell support guide you through this.

A second alternative that I would recommend even though it is much costlier but would be much better in the end, would be to purchase a new server. Put in about seven or eight drives, make a mirror for your system drives and a RAID5 for your data. Now you have your OS on a mirror and plenty of room for data and internal storage.

HTH. Good luck.

You can get a six-day trial account at EE.

Thanks for the advice. It is appreciated. I will sign up for the trial of EE and check out that post. As for your suggestions, they all sound feasible, however, the thought of imaging the raid array containing both OS partition and data partition to a separate intermediary drive really, really scares me. If I do that, then destroy the array and create a new one with larger disks and find out there was an issue with my image, then I believe everything from the original RAID set would be gone, and since this machine is doing several other important things I think that would be a considerable risk to take. The suggestions seem pretty good, but I am just too worried about something going wrong when messing with RAID or imaging and not having a quick and easy fall back plan. Reinstalling the OS and all the other server apps is out of the question.

I had hoped someone would have found some useful trick to get the data to reside on a network drive or something similar, but that seems to be out of the question.

As for the hard drives, I believe the drives have a carrier for inserting into the server from the front for hot swap capability. I will double check, but I know that makes them significantly more expensive.

Thanks again.

Tom

Tom,

You post is a great one b/c it illustrates a perfect and inevitable problem we will all face several times in our carreers....we will eventually outgrow our servers. You are at that point, and there is no way around the fact that you need to harware-upgrade or replace your server. The other user replies echo this fact.

I share your problem. I have a Dell PowerEdge 2900 with four drives, 2 pairs of 2 drives in a RAID 10 config. Each pair is 160 GB so I have 320GB total. While my problem is not yet one of space, my problem is the OS which I want to upgrade.

But the core issue I have is the same as yours. I need to do a hardware upgrade, and have purchased 8 x 750 GB drives for my server which will boost my capacity significantly. Then I will upgrade to a new OS (SBS 2008) and then migrate my current settings into the new OS (SBS 2003 upgraded to SBS 2008) using another large capacity desktop to perform a "swing migration."


Tom I had to SEAPARATELY buy the carrier trays for the hard drives, search Ebay for "[your system model] hard drive carrier trays." Buy them on ebay, and get your hard drives new from Tigerdirect.com or Newegg.com. Hard drives are dirt cheap if you are satisfied with 7200 RPM SATA with sizes < 1-TB. The carrier trays for the Dell Poweredge are even less expensive. They range on Ebay from $10-25 each, and many sellers have brand new ones. I got mine new for $15 each, including shipping fees and the hard drive mounting screws.

My suggestion: you would be well served to hire an IT expert to help your expansion project. I am doing so for mine. While I originally setup my server and installed the RAID configuation and SBS, this project is too complex and frankly too scary for me to do on my own. I simply cannot afford to have my server down for days or weeks while I monkey around with it. So I swallowed my pride and had to hire an expert to help me. This is very hard for me to do b/c as a physician, I'm trained to try and figure things out on my own. Asking for help is not easy for me because I know that (with enough time) I could do this on my own.....but I don't have 1 whole week off to do this project and run a busy practice. So had to hire help.



My project is causing me massive amounts of anxiety. It should b/c the server is my business. Without it, I am bankrupt. So I'm not taking any chances on this. The point is your migration is not simple and is not easy. I'm not saying you can't do it on your own, but (like me) I am saying that you are justified in your anxiety about this upgrade. Unless you are 100% certain about the solution you read about on E-E, hire help for this project.

Tom
I dont see why you cannot move your IMPORTED items to a different drive.
I have IMPORTED items on a different HARD DRIVE on one of my workstations and MAPPED/SHARED that drive so that it is acessible to all my work station computers.The only problem with that setup was that the workstation had to be on all the time.
So I moved the imported item to an EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE connected to my server and MAPPED/SHARED that drive with all my work station computers.
Since you already have your IMPORTED ITEMS on AC, one way to do it, is to open the items and SAVE them to a location other than AC, like an external hard drive which can be MAPPED/SHARED.
I tried it and it works, you can then delete the imported items in AC , once you have saved it to your new location
You should also check the AC backup folder on AC if you are backing up to an external source as AC puts a backup copy in the AC backup folder everytime you backup AC to an extrernal source.
Bert how do you highlight peoples post which says originally posted by.. and post part of their comeents?
Grenville

Greeneville,


If you mean like this, you simply copy and paste, then bracket the post with [_uote=user] at front, then [/_uote] at the back.

** Notice the q for quote is replaced by an underscore as if I didn't do that it would continue to show up as a weird quote.

Also, if you go to the post below "Test Post" and click on Quick Quote, it will show you the commands to do it.

Test post.

Thank you all for your advice. I think the only real option is to roll out a new server. It makes the most sense at this point I think.

Have a Merry Christmas!

Tom

A new server can be a very nice Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, or Happy Hanukkah present to yourself.

Bert will probably agree w/ me, look at the Dell PowerEdge series. There are numerous server options from very affordable to very expensive. The Dell support program, extended warrantees are very worthwhile. He and I have both subscribed to them and found their customer service and tech support very reliable.

I'v had my Dell PowerEdge 2900 for 3 years, and as I've mentioned above I'm just upgrading it. I don't really NEED to upgrade yet, but I want to. It has tremendous capacity to upgrade.

That's my point, if you are going to buy a new server consider getting one that meets your needs for today but has room to expand to meet your demands for tomorrow.

Tom:

Are you backing up all your backup every night onto the server as well? Onto how many drives on the server? Just so you know, the amazing charts back up also even if you hit backup to the amazing charts server and to your other drive on the server will also put a back up file into the amazing charts folder daily. You need to go into that folder and clear it out.