Transfer hdd to another server

A

Afox

Renowned Member
Dec 18, 2014
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Hello,

what could possibly go wrong if you take the disk with installed Proxmox to another, almost the same server?

Would it be a problem if the CPU (model) and RAM (size) would be different but the rest is identical?

What if the other server is the same?

What about the NICs? They will surely have different MAC-addresses...

Regards,

Afox

PS: I would exclude problems with RAID-Controllers as they will be the same.
 
Last edited:
Afox said:
what could possibly go wrong if you take the disk with installed Proxmox to another, almost the same server?
Click to expand...

It is ok if the other server have a cpu with hw virtualisation option enabled. The best is to try to make a new install on this other server using a different hdd (not the same with the one that you want to move). Also copy your mac addr for this new network interface.
If after this test proxmox install seems to be ok, then you can move the hdd in this server. Before you start move the hdd, change the mac addresses in the server so when you move the hdd, you will have the same networks interfaces.

Good luck!
 
hi, thanks for your reply!
and what if there is no time to change the MAC-address e.g. in case of a hardware-failure?
I try to reconstruct what will happen if I put the disks into the other server without changing anything before (please correct me):
I guess the system boots but what should be eth0 will be something like eth4 (if the damaged server had 4 NICs) and so my bridge vmbr0 using eth0 as bridge_port will not work anymore and I have to change that in the interfaces-file and reboot.

Any objections?

PS: I am also interested in how to change that MAC-addresses if the server is still running. As far as I can see the interfaces-file does not name any MAC-addresses.
 
Afox said:
hi, thanks for your reply!
and what if there is no time to change the MAC-address e.g. in case of a hardware-failure?
I try to reconstruct what will happen if I put the disks into the other server without changing anything before (please correct me):
I guess the system boots but what should be eth0 will be something like eth4 (if the damaged server had 4 NICs) and so my bridge vmbr0 using eth0 as bridge_port will not work anymore and I have to change that in the interfaces-file and reboot.

Any objections?

PS: I am also interested in how to change that MAC-addresses if the server is still running. As far as I can see the interfaces-file does not name any MAC-addresses.
Click to expand...
Hi,
depends which version do you have (first installed).

With pve4 your nics are named eth0, eth1 and so on - defined by the bios order and/or /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules .

On the new server the nics are also in this file but named eth4,5... if your old server has four nics (0-3).
Simply adapt the file - remove the old entrys and rename the nics and reboot and all should run.

With pve5 (stretch) your devices named ens0 and much other posibilities.

Udo
 
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I took the hard drive from one server, and moved it to another, and the new server doesn't even try to boot it.
it says "can't find boot device" or something like that.

I can see the drive in the bios, it's the first in the boot order, i tried legacy and UEFI.
any ideas?
 
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