I wanted to remove a drive from my Windows Home Server, so I went to the console, selected the drive and clicked Remove. I was presented with this dialog:
Excuse me? I may lose files? How about this: You are a computer and can, well, compute things. Make sure that I don't lose files or at the very least warn me that the drive can not be removed. Lose files? Please.
OK, it turns out that I was a little harsh on my poor ole' WHS. After I clicked Next (I'm a rebel after all) I was presented with a screen that did in fact check my system to see if I would lose files. Luckily, I have enough free space so that I won't. Never mind.
After you click Finish, the process begins. Depending on the amount of data already on the drive, this could take several hours (as you are warned). And yes, mine did in fact take "several hours".
After WHS is done shuttling files to other available drives, you can safely remove the physical drive from the system.
If you are using an HP EX470, the LED next to the drive that you can remove will turn purple (as shown below).
Stumble Upon
Bookmark on Microsoft Social
Subscribe to RSS
9 comments:
At the last step, make sure that you remove the right disk!
I managed to remove my (full) primary disk thinking it would be the just emptied secondary disk and run some hdd diagnostic tools on it because of bad blocks.
I wondered, why the server didn't came back after the disk removal, but I was already in the reformatting procedure until I noticed my mistake.
Fortunately it was late, but not too late, since only data in the primary partition was overwritten at this time. With a partition recovery tool and the WHS reinstall procedure I was able to revive my WHS. But it was very close to disaster...
I'd like to add one more observation about the drive removal process. During the "several hours", the shares are taken offline. Why? I can understand that adding files while drive removal is taking place could be a little difficult to track, but I'd like to at least see a read only version of the shares. I was locked out of some important files and it made me a little mad.
It sounds like this is an overnight procedure -- I'll have to remember that. I wonder how WHS handles a failing drive -- if it can't copy stuff off of it, does it just hang or does it eventually give up? Also, I wonder if WHS (or the HP version) performs S.M.A.R.T. monitoring of each drive to try to anticipate failures.
I just did this yesterday while transferring from a Frankenserver (home-built WHS) to a real HP MediaSmart Server. The Frankenserver has 1 system drive and 2 extra drives.
I cleared most of the files from the WHS before removing the extra drives, thinking I'd save some time on the removal process. There was like 20MB of stuff left, and the Duplication Info add-in confirmed that the extra drives were mostly empty.
Turns out you don't save anything by clearing the drives manually, it still took 4-5 hours per (empty) drive. Those were 500GB SATA II WDs.
Funny thing about the "You May Lose Files" warning... It doesn't tell you which files you may lose! That's kinda important, no? :)
In the end, the only drive left on the Frankenserver was the System drive, and I did lose the little amount of stuff that was left there. I had backups elsewhere so it didn't matter, but I was surprised the drive removal process did not move the existing files to the (only remaining) system drive...
I just received a new 1TB drive to add to server (I wanted to use a 250GB drive from server elsewhere). It took no time to add the 1TB drive, and that should have allowed PLENTY of space to remove the 250GB.
"Removal" took just a few moments, not the hours I expected, and then I was warned I would lose files and backups. It doesn't seem I lost any files but my backup database was corrupt.
Be warned... if the removal procedure doesn't take a long time, something is wrong.
Where are you seeing the time on this? I just added a 1TB Drive in slot 4 (have not added any files yet) and want to remove a 500gb drive in slot 3. Its on the calculating available space screen and has been for some time, but the status bar has only incremented about half an inch (says below it may take several minuts or longer). Is this what other have observed?
So you all have me nervous with this removing a drive and losing data. I am going to do the upgrade of the processor and memory as mentioned on this site. Do I need to do anything special to remove the drives, i.e. the drive removal program you all are talking about in this thread, or is it as simple as turning the unit off, pulling the drives out and keeping them in order and then replacing them in the exact same order before turning the unit back on? Thanks for your help! I'd be in deep do do with the wife if I loose our pictures, music, files, etc because I'm adding more power!
You don't have to go through the drive removal procedure to upgrade the memory. Just shut it down properly.
That said, with the ongoing data corruption problem that will supposedly finally fixed in June, I don't yet trust the WHS with my critical data -- documents, pictures, etc. While it appears to be only files with NTFS streams on replicated volumes that are affected, and I didn't even know that programs are actually using streams, it still seems too risky. I use ACDSee to organize photos and it has a built-in database. It would be a disaster if the database, which contains comments about who is in photos, etc. were corrupted, and that's exactly the kind of file that seems to fall victim to the problem.
Anyway, I suggest that you keep a backup of your critical stuff somewhere else. Once Microsoft updates WHS with the fix and also gives it the ability to back itself up to an external disk (I have a spare 1TB E-SATA drive here waiting for that feature), then I'll trust it with my data. Right now, I'm content to have it back up my main machine and hold videos.
I also have 2GB of memory waiting to be installed in the HP. Just haven't gotten to it yet.
Thanks for the answer invader. I do have all files backed up onto multiple DVD's with one set at home and one set at the office (just in case). Just don't want to have to go through the whole process of getting them loaded back in while the woman is over my shoulder screaming at me!
Post a Comment