New NT or Upgrade Installation IDEAS???

[phamilton99]

We have a Win NT 4 Server, Pentium 75, 128MB and 2 drives of 2GB and 8GB. The 2GB holds the the winnt folder and some of the user home folders. The 8 GB also holds some of our important files and other user home folders. What is the best way to install a new server or upgrade the existing. Could a BDC be installed and then promoted to the PDC copying our original files to it? We also considered backing up our original server to tape and then restoring the info on the new installed server. What would be the best plan of action.

 

[Zelandakh]

You want to improve the speed, have no services running that you want to keep (like DNS etc) and only wish to migrate the data?

Assuming you can find some downtime and don't have to do this live and that your server is a single server in a single domain configured as a PDC:

Install new server as BDC in same domain. Unshare old server. Copy data from old server to new server and set up shares.

No need to backup and restore. Leave old server as PDC to take load off new server. If you are only file sharing, RAM requirements approximately 32MB plus 1MB per user.

 

[tschuy]

If it were me, I'd build a new Server box (since prices are so cheap these days) set it up as the BDC (which allows the user accounts and SAM tables to come across) and then promote it to the PDC (assuming you want to get rid of the old server) and then transfer the files over to it. Doing this though will cause the network shares on the client PC's to break but with a general message out to them and the new path will quickly be fixed. I do like Zelandakh's idea too and it would provide redundancy on your network. Keep the PDC that you have (to continue to maintain the administration duties) but move the files over to the new BDC server. That way if the PDC goes down you still have a network and domain that the users can log onto. Where as what you have now is if the PDC goes down you have nothing (not a good thing for you or your customers).

Best of luck to you and I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Tim Schuy