HI All our exchange server is running out of space and it's a mirrord drive, i am going to add another disk and change to raid 5 but to do this i am going to conver the server to a vm on a temp computer change the drive configuration and move the server back to the physical box. I am going to use Acronis to conver a backup to vm and then copy the data base and logs over from the running server to the temp vm, then the reverse to get back to working on the physical server, as long as we keep the changes to the min is there going to be an issue with moving the database and logs from one to the other bearing in mind that as far as AD see's they are the same server it's just weather exchange is going to let us move the files and let us get away with it. any one got any idea's on this? cheers Tom

Hi there, Why not just move mailboxes to the other server? I know you said you were going to image, but you could just build one and install Exchange. You can then delete the database/s, re-size your disks as required and then move the mailboxes back? This is a far less risky approach to what you are suggesting. If you want to go your way, you can move the database over to another server with the database portability feature introduced in Exchange Server 2007 and onwards. However you haven't mentioned your Exchange version, if you can clarify your environment more specific advice and help will be forth coming. OliverOliver Moazzezi | Exchange MVP, MCSA:M, MCITP:Exchange 2010, BA (Hons) Anim | http://www.exchange2010.com | http://www.cobweb.com | http://twitter.com/OliverMoazzezi

Hi Thanks for the reply, we can't re size the disks as they are mirrored and there is no additional space so the optio we are going for is to delete the virtual disk install one new hard drive and recreate a raid 5 disk which will give us an extra 200+ GB of space. we are currently running exchange 2003 on server 2003, I thought we would be able to do this as you can restore an exchange database over the top of the current database which is effectively just copying the backed up db and logs over the top, i know it doews a bit more than this but it's going to be exactly the same server just the date on the database and logs will change. I owuld preffer not to bring up a second exchange server and move mailbox's as this will cause problems in it's self as we will need to copy share's etc over as well, which would take up quite a bit of time. I can try to find time and setup a test enviroment for this but i hopped some one else will have done this so i didn't have to cheers Tom

Hi, I meant re-size the disks after all the data is off them. So break the mirror, add disk and create a new RAID array as you see fit. If you don't want to add another server and then move mailboxes, Read this: "How to Move Exchange Server to a New Computer That Has the Same Name" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q155216/ That should give you clear guidance advice Tom minus the clone using Acronis. I presume both servers won't be online at the same time. You could you know just schedule downtime, backup the data on the drive, break the mirror, create the RAID5 array, format and restore the data. Or just move mailboxes :-) I don't know how many mailboxes are on the server you plan to do this on, or how important mailbox access is, but I wouldn't be doing what you are contemplating. Oliver Oliver Moazzezi | Exchange MVP, MCSA:M, MCITP:Exchange 2010, BA (Hons) Anim | http://www.exchange2010.com | http://www.cobweb.com | http://twitter.com/OliverMoazzezi