Moving Volumes to a Newly Added eSATA array/Expanding System Volume

[apr400]

Hi,

I have an XServe G5, running 10.5.3. Currently it has 1 80 Gb internal disk and 2 x 250 Gb internal disks configured as a single 250 Gb RAID1.

I am just about to add a Sonnet R400Q eSATA disk array, via a Sonnet Tempo X4P PCI-X SATA card. (The XServe also has a VGA PCI-X card). The disk array will have 4 x 1 Tb disks, configured as a RAID 10, 2 Tb volume.

Now, assuming that the Sonnet array looks okay once I have plugged it in and given it a test, I want to move all my different volumes around the place. At the moment I have

Disk1 (80 Gb): -> 2 Partitions -> 20 Gb StartupDisk & 60 Gb MailHome
Disk2 (250 Gb): -> 1 Partition -> UserHome

I would like to end up with:

Disk1 (80 Gb): -> 1 Partition -> Startup Disk
Disk2 (250 Gb): -> 1 Partition -> MailHome
Disk3 (2 Tb): -> 1 Partition -> UserHome

My plan is:
1) Test Disk 3 for a few days under the name NewUserHome
2) Shut down all client access
3) Take a Backup of StartupDisk, MailHome and UserHome via rsync+hfs to the backup machine (G4 Tower running 10.4.11 client)
4) Take a Backup of StartupDisk with Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) to an external firewire (FW1)
5) Reboot using FW1 as the startup disk
6) Take a Backup of StartupDisk with Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) to an external firewire (FW2) (this way I can do a backup of a non running StartupDisk, hopefully avoiding any file change problems. (Leopard install made me paranoid.)
7) Move everything from UserHome to NewUserHome with CCC
8) Move everything from MailHome to UserHome with CCC
9) Format Disk1 to have a single partition
10) Restore StartupDisk from FW2 to Disk1
11) Rename UserHome volume as MailHome
12) Rename NewUserHome volume as UserHome
13) Reboot using Disk1 StartupDisk
14) Turn client services back on

I am hoping that I won’t need to redefine the home and mail folders for any of my users if I do it this way as the volume names will move to the appropriate disks.

I am a little worried as to whether I can clone a good quality copy of the StartupDisk (for instance problems with copying OD – should I stop OD first, if so how – the only way I can think of off the top of my head is to demote the OD.

Any other things I haven’t thought about that might catch me out (for instance, anything that is identifying positions on disks by inodes (old eudora attachment problem for instance) or disks by references other than volume name. Any databases that I need to kill before backing up other than mail, and possibly OD etc etc?

Additional Server Info:
Services:
AFP, Firewall, Mail, OD (LDAP and Kerberos both used by users), SMB, Web,

Number of Users ~ 50

Many thanks for any advice.

[apr400]

Hi All,

Lots of views, but no responses – anyone care to venture an opinion as to whether my scheme will work?

Many thanks

[apr400]

I hadn’t thought of ASR – thanks.

[Author]

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