I have a Hyper-V server w/ 2x500GB drives on RAID1. I would like to replace these with 4x1TB drives on RAID6. I have four VMs on one host, and can get by with just restoring the VMs on a new host installation.
I'm trying to figure out the best (safest) way to do this but also minimize downtime. I'm afraid my options are limited, and will result in more downtime than I can afford.
Here is what I'm thinking, but wondering if others have a better strategy:
- Copy off VMs to another server.
- Swap 2x500GB HDDs w/ 4x1TB HDDs.
- Set up RAID and install clean Hyper-V host.
- Copy over VMs to new host & set up.
Assuming this is the best approach, I'm still probably looking at a few hours downtime at best. So just wondering if there's a way I'm not thinking of I could do this with less downtime.
Unfortunately, this is a single-server environment, but I do have another server I can use just to store the VMs during the migration.
Update: Some updates regarding specs. This is a Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V host w/ 2x Server 2012 VMs, and 2 Server 2012 R2 VMs.
The server is a 1U Dell Poweredge R310, with 4 HDD bays, and hardware software RAID, Dell PERC S100 controller.
I'm not set on 1TB drives, or HDD vs. SSD, and can afford to spend a little more if it makes sense. But I do need more capacity, would like more redundancy, and would like to keep performance at least on par with or better than RAID1.