Hi all: Our main office is moving to a new building. I of course have to move all our servers. We use DL385 G1 and G2. As part of the move, I am installing new racks and rail systems so all I have to do is disconnect the servers, slide them out of the rack at our old location, move them and slide them into the new rack and hook them back up. I will have all cabling in the racks pre-installed and new UPSs too.
I am worried about the actual physical move of the servers. My plan is to “car pool” them in four or five cars all at once. I am wondering if I should move the servers with the HDDs in the units, or number and remove the HDDs and transport them separately?
Hi all: Our main office is moving to a new building. I of course have to move
all our servers. We use DL385 G1 and G2. As part of the move, I am installing
new racks and rail systems so all I have to do is disconnect the servers, slide
them out of the rack at our old location, move them and slide them into the new
rack and hook them back up. I will have all cabling in the racks pre-installed
and new UPSs too.
I am worried about the actual physical move of the servers. My plan is to “car
pool” them in four or five cars all at once. I am wondering if I should move
the servers with the HDDs in the units, or number and remove the HDDs and
transport them separately?
Thanks, Chris.
[/color]
I don’t see any reason to pull hard drives. If a box takes enough of a
hit during transport to destroy a drive I think you would be ordering a
new server.
I am worried about the actual physical move of the servers. My plan
is to “car pool” them in four or five cars all at once. I am
wondering if I should move the servers with the HDDs in the units, or
number and remove the HDDs and transport them separately?
Thanks, Chris.[/color]
So my response to Chris’s comment is…
I would say you should be safe to move the servers w/ the HDs in them.
We still do when we take a new box to replace an esx host at a remote
site.
On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 14:39:06 GMT, Chris <cmosentine@N0_5pam.vrapc.com>
wrote:
[color=blue]
Hi all: Our main office is moving to a new building. I of course have to move all our servers. We use DL385 G1 and G2. As part of the move, I am installing new racks and rail systems so all I have to do is disconnect the servers, slide them out of the rack at our old location, move them and slide them into the new rack and hook them back up. I will have all cabling in the racks pre-installed and new UPSs too.
I am worried about the actual physical move of the servers. My plan is to “car pool” them in four or five cars all at once. I am wondering if I should move the servers with the HDDs in the units, or number and remove the HDDs and transport them separately?
Thanks, Chris.[/color]
Whenever I have setup new servers for my remote office, I always
install everything (drives, cards, memory, etc) and then transport the
server. Never had any issues with doing so and it means I am moving
one object instead of multiple objects.
And when we moved our remote office, I stated that I would be
personally moving the servers. I didn’t want the moving company
touching them.
I think you’re ok to just pull the servers and move them.
I am worried about the actual physical move of the servers. My plan
is to “car pool” them in four or five cars all at once. I am
wondering if I should move the servers with the HDDs in the units, or
number and remove the HDDs and transport them separately?
Thanks, Chris.[/color]
So my response to Chris’s comment is…
I would say you should be safe to move the servers w/ the HDs in them.
We still do when we take a new box to replace an esx host at a remote
site.
–
Stevo[/color]
I would defiantly remove the hd:s during the move… A couple of months
ago when we moved 3 servers about one kilometer, 2 disks died during
that move… So when we move the rest of the servers we will be
transporting the disks more carefully.
I am worried about the actual physical move of the servers. My plan
is to “car pool” them in four or five cars all at once. I am
wondering if I should move the servers with the HDDs in the units, or
number and remove the HDDs and transport them separately?[/color]
This is always the issue: How much precaution is enough?
First of all, make sure you have good backups of all your data. You
never know if someone is going to drop a piano out a window on top of
your servers.
Next, it depends on the move itself. If you can carry each server to
the vehicle, place it on a foam pad, drive on paved roads to the
destination, then carry the server to the new rack and insert it, I
would be inclined to leave the drives installed. The idea is to prevent
unnecessary vibration which can impact the integrity of your hard
drives.
If the servers may be subjected to vibrations en route or while
loading/unloading, I would be inclined to remove the drives. It would
likely take more time to replace a drive and rebuild an array or
restore a backup than to remove/reinstall the drives.
–
Kevin Boyle - Knowledge Partner
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i’ve done this a few times with the drives still in, never had any
issues
if the drives die during the move it’s likely they would still die if
they were powered down for an extended period, i’ve had drives die when
servers have been off for a few hours or few days before without
physically moving them
Hi all: Our main office is moving to a new building. I of course have
to move all our servers. We use DL385 G1 and G2. As part of the move,
I am installing new racks and rail systems so all I have to do is
disconnect the servers, slide them out of the rack at our old location,
move them and slide them into the new rack and hook them back up. I
will have all cabling in the racks pre-installed and new UPSs too.
I am worried about the actual physical move of the servers. My plan is
to “car pool” them in four or five cars all at once. I am wondering if
I should move the servers with the HDDs in the units, or number and
remove the HDDs and transport them separately?
Thanks, Chris.[/color]
Hey Chris. Hope your move went well?
My advice is for what it costs vs risk to your business, hire a
professional IT rely company.
We have been bought in on jobs where people have tried to move
themselves or used cheap man and van movers.
It’s just not worth the risk. Any good relo company will be able to
assist with as much or little of your server move as you like. If all
you need is safe physical transportation they should supply adequate
packaging, (we use custom built, foam lined, server flight cases and
anti static bubble wrap). Safe handling, with server lifts or suchlike
if necessary, and of course good sized vehicles with taillifts.
The work should of course include insurance in case the worst happens.
