Local migration of Win2k8 Server? Just a few questions.

[r4pt0x]

Hello,

I'm about to virtualize a Win2k8 (32bit) Standard server running on an ACER Altos G540 M2 (8 cores, 32G RAM). Don't ask about this configuration - it was not my fault
ANyhow - the database server (MSSQL) is painfully slow, especially because of the RAM limitation of the OS. Fortunately there's a 64bit Version of the server application available, but we have t keep another 32bit system, because 2 server applications needed are not available for 64bit systems yet.
So i want to migrate the existing 32bit system first to have everything back running as it was and then start to set up the 64bit Windows for the database server (MSSQL, proprietary software, only available for Windows) plus a debian server for network- and fileservices.

We only have this single server - so i cant' do the remote-migrations listed in the wiki.

The server runs a RAID-10 with 1TB HDDs, containing 2 partitions ("Windows" and "Storage") so my plan was to use 2 disks for a new RAID0 which will hold the new proxmox Hostsystem and keeping the other 2 untouched.


Now for the migration, where i'm not sure if this will work as i'm expecting it to:

1st step: set up a VM and assign 3 IDE disks:
IDE0 will be the C Drive "Windows"
IDE1 will be the F Drive "Storage"
IDE2 will be the exchange-drive for the migration (will be deleted after migration)

Now the first question: is it possible to get a physical drive *directly* passed to a VM?
Then i would pass the W2k8 RAID0 disks to the VM, boot the VM with SystemRescueCD and use fsarchivier to backup the 2 physical partitions to IDE2 and restore them to IDE0+1

Otherwise i have to use the NAS (IDE2 not needed):
Booting up the physical W2K8 with SystemRescueCD, backing up the 2 drives via fsarchivier to the NAS, booting the VM with SysremRescueCD and restoring the 2 drives from the NAS...



Is there anything crucial i missed?

Any suggestions on how i could make the migration easier?


Thanks!

 

[udo]

Hi,
i would not recommend an raid-0 for the proxmox-system (and vm?) If one disk die all is lost!

You can pass an physically drive directly to an vm, but the second way is IMHO the better choice.
How many disks (and what kind) do you have in raid10? IO is often an bottleneck.
For an database-server you win a lot with an fast raid-controller, and 6 sas-disks (4 are also good but 6 are better ;-) ).

Udo

 

[r4pt0x]

Of course the raid 0 would have been only temporary during the migration. as soon as the system is running, all 4 disks will be back in raid-10.
This is just ment as a fallback if everything would went wrong and migration would take too long, so i can have the original system back up running for monday.

Because the NAS wasn't configured correctly and the password was missing (only restricted public-access via windows-shares, admin-password lost...) i've lost the whole day backing up _everything_ from the NAS to reset it to factory defaults and set it up right.

I'll use the NAS as backup and migration storage - so the Win2k8 system will be backed up to the NAS, then prepared for migration (IDE patches, network settings), then packed via fsarchiver to the NAS, proxmox is set up at the server and then i can import the machine via fsarchiver to the prepared VM.


We currently have 4x1TB SAS disks at the LSI MegaRAID controller, which It's way too much storage - only ~300GB are used with lots of outdated backups and long forgotten files... So effectively ~200GB are needed.
I would prefer 4x (or 6x) 500GB for VM storage and seperate disks for the system - but that's the configuration i have to live with for now...

The 3 Databases are only 1-1,5GB in size, so i think as soon as we get rid of the 32bit system the performance should be OK.