Acronis Univeral Restore and SBS2003 Migration

Hi All,

I am looking for some feeback, ideas or thoughts on using Acronis Universal Restore to perform an SBS2003 migration to new hardware.

Has anyone used AUR to perform a migration to new hardware? Did you encounter any issues or did it go smoothly?

Normally in a migration scenario we have a couple of options (1. Standard MS migration with Migration Tools etc, SWING! migrations to temporary Virtual Servers etc). However, AUR seeems to be a good candidate for the job.

1. Disable Server service, umount Exchange Information Stores etc.
2. Image SBS2003 to NAS.
3. Power-off old server.
4. Restore SBS2003 image to new bare metal server.
5. Test

No messing about with AD tools

What do you think?

TIA,

Andrew

 

Hello Andrew,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Server Disk Backup Software.

We recommend that you use Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows in conjunction with Acronis Universal Restore for your purposes.

We also recommend that you download and install the free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows to see how the software works on your particular software\hardware configuration.

If you want to obtain the free trial version of Acronis Universal Restore then please submit a request for technical support using Ask a question before you purchase Acronis software link. Explain your wish to obtain the free trial version of Acronis Universal and provide the link to this thread in your request.

You can find the detailed instructions on how to transfer the system to a computer with different hardware configuration using Acronis Universal Restore in Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows User's Guide.

You may also find Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows FAQ page helpful.

Please visit Acronis online store to purchase the full version of the product. Note that we have a flexible system of discounts and the amount of the discount varies depending on the number of copies you want to purchase. In case you are planning to purchase many copies, please contact our Sales Team at sales@acronis.com.

If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

Thank you.
--
Alexey Popov

 

I bought Workstation and UR specifically for the claimed ability of moving a valid system disk to a new mother board but I have had no success with anumber of trials and not been able to meet someone who has made it work. In my case after loading the rescue disk, selecting AUR, selcting tha archive and then selecting a blank new identical hard disk the machines runs for around thirty seconds and then reboots back to the rescue disk with no action taken.
I am about to abandon it as to troublesome, it was not expensive but worth trying as if it had worked it would have been very useful

 

Thanks for the reply onclejean.

I suppose I should update this thread. I carried out the work that I stated above, and it worked perfectly.

I used VSS support to backup Exchange, sharepoint etc to a Full backup image to the NAS the night before the migration.

The next day, disabled Exchange and Sharepoint on the SBS server, and inserted the UR rescue disk into new hardware. The new hardware was a Dell 2950, that has SAS hard drives with a Perc5/i RAID controller. This was being moved from an old PE 4600, with A Perc3/di SCSI card with 7 SCSI disks.

I added the Win2k3 Perc5/i and Broadcom (was Intel ProSet on old system) drivers when running through the resuce disk.

It took about 5 hours to restore from the 1GB connected NAS to the new server, although I suspect that the Universal Restore rescue disk only has 100MBit drivers...

So, to summarize, I *could* perform the above steps. They also allowed me to shave several consultancy days off my original quote to my customer, as this method is much quicker than traditional ADMT based migrations, or even swing! migrations.

TIP: On first boot on your new system, reboot into Safe Mode and disable the three automatic Exchanges services. This means you don;t have to wait an hour 'preparing network connections' while Exchange tried to figure out why it has no NIC's! Once NIC's are correctly installed, simply change them back to automagic and start them.

I will be using the method in the future.

Thanks.

A.

 

I usually disable those services before the last shutdown on the old hardware.

 

The thing is, then they won't be disabled in the new image that is created.

For me it was unacceptable for Exchange to be down while Acronis created the image, so they remain up an dVSS is used. This means, when you boot the new hardware, the services are still automatic, and they will start. If you have issues with your NIC, then Exchange will take an small age to start.

Found that out the hardware way

 

The hardware way!?!??! Freudian!

 

Hello onclejean,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Workstation Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

First of all, please make sure you use the latest build (3718 ) of Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation and the latest version of Acronis Universal Restore. You can find in the Help -> About dialog (it should be a 3 or 4 digit number). To get access to updates you should first register your software.

Please create a new Acronis True Image Bootable CD with the latest build and try to perform the restore once again.

If the issue still persists, please explain your step-by-step actions which you took that led you to this issue. Also please clarify the following:

- Did you create the image of the entire hard drive or only system partition?

- What operating system you use (the one that in the image archive)?

- Did you restore the entire hard drive or only system partition?

Then submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
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Aleksandr Isakov