Copy server system setup to replacement system drive

Run a simple home server (OS 10.3.9) on an older machine (MDD Dual 8.67, 1G ram). As I can't boot from a RAID, I configured it with a single small drive for the server software, and a 1Tb raid for storage. the open remaining slot I filled with a scratch drive for video storage.
Well, the inevitable happened, and the system drive corrupted. I can read everything on it, but can't repair it or boot from it. Is there an easy way to pull all of the network settings from the defunct drive to a fresh install of the server software on the scratch drive? I know a clone won't work because of the irreparable failure.
Any help appreciated.
Thanks

I am attempting to restore to an ultra ATA internal HD. I have just attempted to restore with Carbon Clone, Super Duper and Mac Disc Utilities. The system crashes with each application. I'm not sure why, but it just crashes, and will not allow a clone to be produced.
Disc utilities reveals no issues with the system flolder, or any other folder within the main volume HD....I wonder, though, if there is an undetectable, corrupted folder somewhere in the main HD? There does not appear to be anything wrong with the new HD either, but I wonder if there is?
Power Mac G4 (AGP Graphics) Mac OS X (10.4.6) Upgraded 1.8 Ghz dual processor

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Copying server system to external drive, be able to boot off if necessary..

Hello,
I have PowerPC G4 tower that is running Mac OS 9.2.2 as a server, and it works OK the way it is. What I am trying to do is copy the system to an external drive that I removed from a defunct imac, the drive is only 7GB, but should be enough for a bootable external drive. How do I copy the server system onto this drive so if I want in the future to boot from it I can. I am going to be upgrading the machine to OS X, with (2) mirrored 500 GB RAID drives that all users (6) can access. I am trying to eliminate the server as a server and just be able to access mirrored drives as shared volumes across the network. Can anyone steer me in the right direction? Thanks in advance...

Thank you for the info. I was able to copy the 9.2.2 OS to an external drive and was able to boot from that drive so... that seems to be working as intended. Although I didn't see the "blessed" icon, it seems to be running the way I want it to.
Now, trying to upgrade to OS X seems to be giving me a problem... Is there a version of OS X that needs to be installed first? When I try to load 10.4.3 and reboot the mac to the install CD I get an odd screen in multiple languages, stating that "You need to restart your computer" and in the background there are multiple lines of code saying various errors "unable to find driver for this platform: "PowerMac3,3" "No debug configured-dumping debug information" "Kernal Version: Darwin Kernal Version 8.8.5" among other text. Last line says: "Panic: we are hanging here...
Please forgive my ignorance with these issues , but I appreciate any help possible.

Windows Server 2012 - Hyper-V - Cluster Sharded Storage - VHDX unexpectedly gets copied to System Volume Information by "System", Virtual Machines stops respondig

We have a problem with one of our deployments of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V with a 2 node cluster connected to a iSCSI SAN.
Our setup:
Hosts - Both run Windows Server 2012 Standard and are clustered.
HP ProLiant G7, 24 GB RAM. This is the primary host and normaly all VMs run on this host.
HP ProLiant G5, 20 GB RAM. This is the secondary host that and is intended to be used in case of failure of the primary host.
We have no antivirus on the hosts and the scheduled ShadowCopy (previous version of files) is switched off.
iSCSI SAN:
QNAP NAS TS-869 Pro, 8 INTEL SSDSA2CW160G3 160 GB i a RAID 5 with a Host Spare. 2 Teamed NIC.
Switch:
DLINK DGS-1210-16 - Both the network cards of the Hosts that are dedicated to the Storage and the Storage itself are connected to the same switch and nothing else is connected to this switch.
Virtual Machines:
3 Windows Server 2012 Standard - 1 DC, 1 FileServer, 1 Application Server.
1 Windows Server 2008 Standard Exchange Server.
All VMs are using dynamic disks (as recommended by Microsoft).
Updates
We have applied the most resent updates to the Hosts, VMs and iSCSI SAN about 3 weeks ago with no change in our problem and we continually update the setup.
Normal operation:
Normally this setup works just fine and we see no real difference in speed in startup, file copy and processing speed in LoB applications of this setup compared to a single host with two 10000 RPM Disks. Normal network speed is 10-200 Mbit, but occasionally
we see speeds up to 400 Mbit/s of combined read/write for instance during file repair.
Our Problem:
Our problem is that for some reason a random VHDX gets copied to System Volume Information by "System" of the Clusterd Shared Storage (i.e. C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\System Volume Information).
All VMs stops responding or responds very slowly during this copy process and you can for instance not send CTRL-ALT-DEL to a VM in the Hyper-V console, or for instance start task manager when already logged in.
This happens at random and not every day and different VHDX files from different VMs gets copied each time. Some time it happens during daytime wich causes a lot of problems, especially when a 200 GB file gets copied (which take a lot of time).
What it is not:
We thought that this was connected to the backup, but the backup had finished 3 hours before the last time this happended and the backup never uses any of the files in System Volume Information so it is not the backup.
An observation:
When this happend today I switched on ShadowCopy (previous files) and set it to only to use 320 MB of storage and then the Copy Process stopped and the virtual Machines started responding again. This could be unrelated since there is no way to see
how much of the VHDX that is left to be copied, so it might have been finished at the same time as I enabled ShadowCopy (previos files).
Our question:
Why is a VHDX copied to System Volume Information when scheduled ShadowCopy (previous version of files) is switched off? As far as I know, nothing should be copied to this folder when this functionis switched off?
List of VSS Writers:
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2012 Microsoft Corp.
Writer name: 'Task Scheduler Writer'
   Writer Id: {d61d61c8-d73a-4eee-8cdd-f6f9786b7124}
   Writer Instance Id: {1bddd48e-5052-49db-9b07-b96f96727e6b}
   State: [1] Stable
   Last error: No error
Writer name: 'VSS Metadata Store Writer'
   Writer Id: {75dfb225-e2e4-4d39-9ac9-ffaff65ddf06}
   Writer Instance Id: {088e7a7d-09a8-4cc6-a609-ad90e75ddc93}
   State: [1] Stable
   Last error: No error
Writer name: 'Performance Counters Writer'
   Writer Id: {0bada1de-01a9-4625-8278-69e735f39dd2}
   Writer Instance Id: {f0086dda-9efc-47c5-8eb6-a944c3d09381}
   State: [1] Stable
   Last error: No error
Writer name: 'System Writer'
   Writer Id: {e8132975-6f93-4464-a53e-1050253ae220}
   Writer Instance Id: {7848396d-00b1-47cd-8ba9-769b7ce402d2}
   State: [1] Stable
   Last error: No error
Writer name: 'Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer'
   Writer Id: {66841cd4-6ded-4f4b-8f17-fd23f8ddc3de}
   Writer Instance Id: {8b6c534a-18dd-4fff-b14e-1d4aebd1db74}
   State: [5] Waiting for completion
   Last error: No error
Writer name: 'Cluster Shared Volume VSS Writer'
   Writer Id: {1072ae1c-e5a7-4ea1-9e4a-6f7964656570}
   Writer Instance Id: {d46c6a69-8b4a-4307-afcf-ca3611c7f680}
   State: [1] Stable
   Last error: No error
Writer name: 'ASR Writer'
   Writer Id: {be000cbe-11fe-4426-9c58-531aa6355fc4}
   Writer Instance Id: {fc530484-71db-48c3-af5f-ef398070373e}
   State: [1] Stable
   Last error: No error
Writer name: 'WMI Writer'
   Writer Id: {a6ad56c2-b509-4e6c-bb19-49d8f43532f0}
   Writer Instance Id: {3792e26e-c0d0-4901-b799-2e8d9ffe2085}
   State: [1] Stable
   Last error: No error
Writer name: 'Registry Writer'
   Writer Id: {afbab4a2-367d-4d15-a586-71dbb18f8485}
   Writer Instance Id: {6ea65f92-e3fd-4a23-9e5f-b23de43bc756}
   State: [1] Stable
   Last error: No error
Writer name: 'BITS Writer'
   Writer Id: {4969d978-be47-48b0-b100-f328f07ac1e0}
   Writer Instance Id: {71dc7876-2089-472c-8fed-4b8862037528}
   State: [1] Stable
   Last error: No error
Writer name: 'Shadow Copy Optimization Writer'
   Writer Id: {4dc3bdd4-ab48-4d07-adb0-3bee2926fd7f}
   Writer Instance Id: {cb0c7fd8-1f5c-41bb-b2cc-82fabbdc466e}
   State: [1] Stable
   Last error: No error
Writer name: 'Cluster Database'
   Writer Id: {41e12264-35d8-479b-8e5c-9b23d1dad37e}
   Writer Instance Id: {23320f7e-f165-409d-8456-5d7d8fbaefed}
   State: [1] Stable
   Last error: No error
Writer name: 'COM+ REGDB Writer'
   Writer Id: {542da469-d3e1-473c-9f4f-7847f01fc64f}
   Writer Instance Id: {f23d0208-e569-48b0-ad30-1addb1a044af}
   State: [1] Stable
   Last error: No error
Please note:
Please only answer our question and do not offer any general optimization tips that do not directly adress the issue! We want the problem to go away, not to finish a bit faster!

Hallo Lawrence!
Thankyou for youre reply, some comments to help you and others who read this thread:
First of all, we use Windows Server 2012 and the VHDX as I wrote in the headline and in the text in my post. We have not had this problem in similar setups with Windows Server 2008 R2, so the problem seem to be introduced in Windows Server 2012.
These posts that you refer to seem to be outdated and/or do not apply to our configuration:
The post about Dynamic Disks:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee941151(v=WS.10).aspx is only a recommendation for Windows Server 2008 R2 and the VHD format. Dynamic VHDX is indeed recommended by Microsoft when using Windows Server 2012 (please look in the optimization guide
for Windows Server 2012).
Infact, if we use fixed VHDX then we would have a bigger problem since fixed VHDX are generaly larger then Dynamic Disks, i.e. more data would be copied and that would take longer time = the VMs would be unresponsive for a longer time.
The post "What's the deal with the System Volume Information folder"
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/11/20/55764.aspx is for Windows XP / Windows Server 2003 and some things has changed since then. for instance In Windows Server 2012, Shadow Copies cannot be controlled by going to Control panel -> System.
Instead you right-click on a Drive (i.e. a Volume, for instance the C drive/Volume) in Computer and then click "Configure Shadow Copies".
Windows Server 2008 R2 Backup problem
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/windowsbackup/thread/0fc53adb-477d-425b-8c99-ad006e132336 - This post is about the Antivirus software trying to scan files used during backup that exists in the System Volume Information folder and we do not
have any antivirus software installed on our hosts as I stated in my post.
Comment that might help us:
So according to “System Volume Information” definition, the operation you mentioned is Volume Shadow Copy. Check event viewer to find Volume Shadow Copy related event logs and post them.
Why?
Furhter investigation suggests that a volume shadow copy is somehow created even though the Schedule for Shadows Copies is turned off for all drives. This happens at random and we have not found any pattern. Yesterday this operation took almost all available
disk space (over 200 GB), but all the disk space was released when I turned on scheduled Shadow Copies for the CSV.
I therefore draw these conclusions:
The CSV Volume has about 600 GB of disk space and since Volume Shadows Copy used 200 GB, or about 33% of the disk space, and the default limit is 10% then I conclude that for some reason the unscheduled Volume Shadow Copy did not have any limit (or ignored
the limit).
When I turned on the Schedule I also change the limit to the minimum amount which is 320 MB and this is probably what released the disk space. That is, the unscheduled Volume Shadow Copy operation was aborted and it adhered to the limit and deleted the
Volume Shadow Copy it had taken.
I have also set the limit for Volume Shadow Copies for all other volumes to 320 MB by using the "Configure Shadow Copies" Window that you open by right clicking on a drive (volume) in Computer and then selecting "Configure Shadow Copies...".
It is important to note that setting a limit for Shadow Copy Storage, and disabaling the Schedule are two different things! It is possible to have unlimited storage for Shadow Copies when the Schedule is disabled, however I do not know if this was the case
Before I enabled Shadow Copies on the CSV since I did not look for this.
I now have defined a limit for Shadow Copy Storage to 320 MB on all drives and then no VHDX should be copied to System Volume Information since they are all larger than 320 MB.
Does this sound about right or am I drawing the wrong conclusions?
Limits for Shadow Copies:
Below we list the limits for our two hosts:
"Primary Host":
C:\>vssadmin list shadowstorage
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2012 Microsoft Corp.
Shadow Copy Storage association
   For volume: (\\?\Volume{e3ad7feb-178b-11e2-93e8-806e6f6e6963}\)\\?\Volume{e3ad7feb-178b-11e2-93e8-806e6f6e6963}\
   Shadow Copy Storage volume: (\\?\Volume{e3ad7feb-178b-11e2-93e8-806e6f6e6963}\)\\?\Volume{e3ad7feb-178b-11e2-93e8-806e6f6e6963}\
   Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 320 MB (91%)
Shadow Copy Storage association
   For volume: (E:)\\?\Volume{dc0a177b-ab03-44c2-8ff6-499b29c3d5cc}\
   Shadow Copy Storage volume: (E:)\\?\Volume{dc0a177b-ab03-44c2-8ff6-499b29c3d5cc}\
   Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 320 MB (0%)
Shadow Copy Storage association
   For volume: (G:)\\?\Volume{f58dc334-17be-11e2-93ee-9c8e991b7c20}\
   Shadow Copy Storage volume: (G:)\\?\Volume{f58dc334-17be-11e2-93ee-9c8e991b7c20}\
   Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 320 MB (3%)
Shadow Copy Storage association
   For volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{e3ad7fec-178b-11e2-93e8-806e6f6e6963}\
   Shadow Copy Storage volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{e3ad7fec-178b-11e2-93e8-806e6f6e6963}\
   Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 320 MB (0%)
C:\>cd \ClusterStorage\Volume1
Secondary host:
C:\>vssadmin list shadowstorage
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2012 Microsoft Corp.
Shadow Copy Storage association
   For volume: (\\?\Volume{b2951138-f01e-11e1-93e8-806e6f6e6963}\)\\?\Volume{b2951138-f01e-11e1-93e8-806e6f6e6963}\
   Shadow Copy Storage volume: (\\?\Volume{b2951138-f01e-11e1-93e8-806e6f6e6963}\)\\?\Volume{b2951138-f01e-11e1-93e8-806e6f6e6963}\
   Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 35,0 MB (10%)
Shadow Copy Storage association
   For volume: (D:)\\?\Volume{5228437e-9a01-4690-bc40-1df85a0e6736}\
   Shadow Copy Storage volume: (D:)\\?\Volume{5228437e-9a01-4690-bc40-1df85a0e6736}\
   Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 27,3 GB (10%)
Shadow Copy Storage association
   For volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{b2951139-f01e-11e1-93e8-806e6f6e6963}\
   Shadow Copy Storage volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{b2951139-f01e-11e1-93e8-806e6f6e6963}\
   Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
   Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 6,80 GB (10%)
C:\>
There is something strange about the limits on the Secondary host!
I have not in any way changed the settings on the Secondary host and as you can see, the Secondary host has a maximum limit of only 35 MB storage on the CSV, but it also shows that this is 10% of the Volume. This is clearly not the case since 10% if 600
GB = 60 GB!
The question is, why does it by default set a too small limit (i.e. < 320 MB) on the CSV and is this the cause of the problem? I.e. is the limit ignored since it is smaller than the smallest amount you can provide using the GUI?
Is the default 35 MB maximum Shadow Copy limit a bug, or is there any logical reason for setting a limit that according to the GUI is too small?

Want to replace System Drive

Hi
I have a Xserve running OS X Server v 10.5
Right now it has the 80GB apple drive module, and it is really full. I want to replace the module with a larger drive, probably the 160GB module. What would be the best way of swaping the drives?
I was thinking of maybe booting the server in target disk mode and using disk utility to create an image of the system drive, but I"m not to clear on how to "install" that image on the new drive.
Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
-ray

This is pretty easy - no need to mess with Target Disk Mode or disk images.
Just boot the system from the install DVD. Once the installer launches choose 'Terminal' from the Utilities menu and use the command-line tool asr to replicate your drive. Something along the lines of:
asr --source /Volumes/ORIGINAL_BOOT --target /Volumes/NEW_DRIVE --erase
This tells asr to copy /Volumes/ORIGINAL_BOOT to /Volumes/NEW_DRIVE after erasing NEW_DRIVE.
When complete, NEW_DRIVE will be a clone of ORIGINAL_BOOT. Once its done you should be able to select NEW_DRIVE as your boot drive and you're done.

I want to replace my main system drive:

Hi all:
I can't seem to find a clear answer on this:
I bought some new drives and would like to replace my main system drive with one of the new drives. It's a bigger drive, 1TB as opposed to 250Gb.
Is it true that I can use Disk Utility to re-image the main drive onto a new drive, then replace the previous system drive with the new mirrored drive?
Please advise. I've found nothing on the site to help me out other than a previous post that seems to indicate that I can do this. If you have details, please share them. Thank you!
-Pete

Either Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper will be more convenient.
You can, in fact, use Disk Utility for this without creating a disk image in between. You just need to go to the Restore tab and drag the current volume (from the sidebar) to Source and drag the new volume to Destination. Make sure you drag the volume (indented under the drive) and not the drive to the Source and Destination fields; this is a volume to volume operation. Check the +Erase destination+ box to make the copy exact. After double-checking that you did not reverse the source and destination , click on the Restore button.
The inconvenience is that you can't be booted from the volume you want to duplicate. So if that volume is your startup volume, you need to restart from the Mac OS X installation disc and run Disk Utility from the Installer's menu bar (or start up from another bootable volume).
The non-Apple cloning utilities use a different method for duplicating, and they can duplicate the startup drive.
Since you have a Power Mac G5, you can mount the new drive in the second internal bay. All the cables and screws are already in the case. There is no need to "replace" the existing drive, and there is no functional or operational difference between the first and second bays.

Replacing system drive

Hi there,
I want to replace my system drive with a larger drive. What is the best method for copying over the entire system drive and make it bootable as it will become my new system drive?
Cheers,
Noah

The method I usually like is to clone out your current drive to your new drive (buy an external drive enclosure for the purpose) using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. Once done, boot up holding down the Option key to make sure the new drive is bootable. Then physically swap the drives. You can use the old drive in the enclosure as a spare or backup drive.
Matt

How to replace system drive in Yoga 13?

When I purchased my Yoga 13 in January 2013, I also purchased a second SSD and added it to my system. Now I need even more storage (of course!). I'd really prefer to replace the original system drive if possible. I checked it out, though, and it came with EIGHT partitions, 2 of which are formatted and have drive letters. I'm assuming the others have important-but-not-readable-by-humans stuff (maybe recovery info) that should be kept as well.
If I temporarily put my new 512-GB SSD in the second slot (that was empty when the machine originally shipped), is there a way for my to copy EVERYTHING from the original drive over to it, make it a boot drive, and then move it into the first drive slot?

Hi S,
If you have the newer unibody style, it's very easy. If it's one of the earlier models, it's considerably more difficult. Go to Apple Menu > About This Mac > More Info > Hardware and find your Model Identifier. Then go to ifixit.com, or powerbookmedic.com or macsales.com or youtube or others and there are illustrated, detailed directions. Good luck to you and post back if you have further questions.

What is the best way to copy aperture library on to external hard drive? I am getting a message that say's "There was an error opening the database. The library could not be opened because the file system of the library's volume is unsupported".

What is the best way to copy aperture library on to external hard drive? I am getting a message that say's "There was an error opening the database. The library could not be opened because the file system of the library's volume is unsupported". What does that mean? I am trying to drag libraries (with metadata) to external HD...wondering what the best way to do that is?

Kirby Krieger wrote:
Hi Shane. Not much in the way of thoughts - - but fwiw:
How is the drive attached?
Can you open large files on the drive with other programs?
Are you running any drive compression or acceleration programs (some drives arrive with these installed)?
Can you reformat the drive and try again?
Hi Kirby,
I attached the UltraMax Plus with a USB cable. The UltraMax powers the cable so power is not an issue. I can open other files. Also, there is 500GB of files on the drive so I cannot re-format it. Although, I noted I could import the entire Aperture Library. However, I do not want to create a duplicate on my machine because that would be defeating the purpose of the external drive.
Thanks,
Shane

!0.5.8 How do I copy the 'system' form one internal Hard drive to an other (BY CD Packed up) Thank you

!0.5.8 How do I copy the 'system' form one internal Hard drive to an other (BY CD Packed up) I have tried but it will no show 'live' system folder - do and how can I bless it ? Thank you

Carbon Copy Cloner will allow you to de-select directory trees, so you could use it to copy over everything EXCEPT the /Users directory tree.
Mac OS X is NOT just the System Folder. If you do not copy over the rest of Mac OS X, it will not boot. So better to exclude Users and take everything else, then it is to try and pick and choose.
The other approach is to install a New Mac OS X, and then copy over the stuff you want from the home folder(s) and reinstall any apps you want.

Is 1 server enough? Or should I employ a 2 server system? (60 to 1)

*Brief Backgound:*
I have 60 LDAP directory bound clients (PPC eMacs and Intel iMacs) to one Dual G5 PowerMac server - such that students login on any client in one of the 3 computer labs, authenicate against the server, and mount their own home directory over the network.
*The Issue:*
It seems to me that the student login process takes way too long to mount their home directories - they often, but not always, have to sit there and wait - and occasionally the authentication process hangs, requiring a forced reboot of the client. And it's worth noting that performance is not always quicker when only a few clients are in use.
*My question:*
Do I need a second server to speed up the login process? Or, am I nowhere near needing a second server, and should I instead concentrate my efforts on other issues to figure out the slow login issue?
*The Details:*
Clients are student eMacs and iMacs running 10.4.10, the slowest of which is 1GHz PPC with 384MB RAM and the newest is 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo with 512MB RAM. All have a dedicated 100mbs wired network connection - that is, each computer has it's own CAT5 cable direct into a 3COM switch which is then connected via gigabit to the backbone switch that the server is tied into. Generally, kids use Safari, MS Office 2004, iLife apps, etc. I have a login hook to make Office look to the client not the server for fonts, etc. Any video work is done on a local user account, not over the network.
The Server is a connected to one of 2 backbone gigabit switches with gigabit (very nice Cisco). It's also running 10.4.10 Server. It's a 2.0GHz Dual G5 PowerMac with 2GB RAM and 2 hard drives. I use Workgroup Manager to manange client preferences. When I monitor the server, neither the processor nor the memory ever get taxed, and there's plenty of free disc space. I plan to replace it with a new 2.6GHz Intel Mac Pro this month, but should I replace it with 2 Mac Pros instead of 1?
Concerns:
I find it a bit daunting to divide the current setup into a 2 server system, but if the results will have a very noticable impact on performance, then I'm willing to go that route.
*Many thanks in advance for your helpful advice!!!*

With your current setup, and just a few clients logging in, you should see pretty decent performance. If all 60 clients logged in at about the same time, you'd be pushing it.
Things to consider:
A replica server with roughly half of the user homes to spread the load.
You mention two HD's, but how do you use them. If a new server is out of the question, you may consider an eSata RAID. You could take the two HD's you have, install the System on them and stripe them for faster performance. Even though you have some files stored locally, there's still a lot of little files flying around when clients log in. A striped system HD may make r/w access a lot faster. Put the network homes on the eSata in a RAID 5 for speed and redundancy. Assuming that the System doesn't change that much, keep a backup of the internal HD's as often as you need, and ditto for the external RAID.
Check out
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304106
and here
http://www.afp548.com/article.php?story=20060329213629494&query=afp%2Btuning
I'm not sure if 10.4.8 and later take care of this stuff, but I can say that these articles have improved performance on our network greatly.
hth
Jeff

Is 1 server enough? Or should I employ a 2 server system?

*Brief Backgound:*
I have 60 LDAP directory bound clients (PPC eMacs and Intel iMacs) to one Dual G5 PowerMac server - such that students login on any client in one of the 3 computer labs and mount their own home directory.
*The Issue:*
It seems to me that the student login process takes way too long to mount their home directories - they often, but not always, have to sit there and wait - and occasionally the authentication process hangs, requiring a forced reboot of the client. And it's worth noting that performance is not always quicker when only a few clients are in use.
*My question:*
Do I need a second server to speed up the login process? Or, am I nowhere near needing a second server, and should I instead concentrate my efforts on other issues to figure out the slow login issue?
*The Details:*
Clients are student eMacs and iMacs running 10.4.10, the slowest of which is 1GHz PPC with 384MB RAM and the newest is 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo with 512MB RAM. All have a dedicated 100mbs wired network connection - that is, each computer has it's own CAT5 cable direct into a 3COM switch which is then connected via gigabit to the backbone switch that the server is tied into. Generally, kids use Safari, MS Office 2004, iLife apps, etc. I have a login hook to make Office look to the client not the server for fonts, etc. Any video work is done on a local user account, not over the network.
The Server is a connected to one of 2 backbone gigabit switches with gigabit (very nice Cisco). It's also running 10.4.10 Server. It's a 2.0GHz Dual G5 PowerMac with 2GB RAM and 2 hard drives. I use Workgroup Manager to manange client preferences. When I monitor the server, neither the processor nor the memory ever get taxed, and there's plenty of free disc space. I plan to replace it with a new 2.6GHz Intel Mac Pro this month, but should I replace it with 2 Mac Pros instead of 1?
Concerns:
I find it a bit daunting to divide the current setup into a 2 server system, but if the results will have a very noticable impact on performance, then I'm willing to go that route.
*Many thanks in advance for your helpful advice!!!*

With your current setup, and just a few clients logging in, you should see pretty decent performance. If all 60 clients logged in at about the same time, you'd be pushing it.
Things to consider:
A replica server with roughly half of the user homes to spread the load.
You mention two HD's, but how do you use them. If a new server is out of the question, you may consider an eSata RAID. You could take the two HD's you have, install the System on them and stripe them for faster performance. Even though you have some files stored locally, there's still a lot of little files flying around when clients log in. A striped system HD may make r/w access a lot faster. Put the network homes on the eSata in a RAID 5 for speed and redundancy. Assuming that the System doesn't change that much, keep a backup of the internal HD's as often as you need, and ditto for the external RAID.
Check out
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304106
and here
http://www.afp548.com/article.php?story=20060329213629494&query=afp%2Btuning
I'm not sure if 10.4.8 and later take care of this stuff, but I can say that these articles have improved performance on our network greatly.
hth
Jeff

Windows 7 Professional Pack configuration on SBS 2011 Essentials for Win 7 client after recovering a faulty system drive

I had a system drive fail on a PC the other day (Seagate Barracudas seem to do this!) and have replaced it with an SSD. Sadly its capacity is less than the original system partition on the failed drive so a bare metal restore does not work. I have
therefore reinstalled Windows 7 Pro and configured the PC with the same name.
In the dashboard of the server Windows 7 Pro Pack is implemented, but it is not functioning on the client. I have re-configured it but still no joy. I cannot see a way to disable W7PP for the client without removing the Add-in and assume this is a problem
relating to using the same name for the computer. Should I remove the Add-in and reinstall or is there an alternative?
TIA
Andrew

Here it is. I have replaced the user, client, domain and server names.
Thanks for your help. I am tempted to just remove the client from the domain, change the PC name and rejoin.
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
===================================
RSOP data for [DomainName]\xxxxxxxxxxxx on [PCName] : Logging Mode
OS Configuration:            Member Workstation
OS Version:                  6.1.7601
Site Name:                   Default-First-Site-Name
Roaming Profile:             N/A
Local Profile:               C:\Users\xxxxxxxxxxxx
Connected over a slow link?: No
COMPUTER SETTINGS
    CN=[PCName],CN=Computers,DC=[DomainName],DC=local
    Last time Group Policy was applied: 22/01/2015 at 09:39:11
    Group Policy was applied from:      [ServerName].[DomainName].local
    Group Policy slow link threshold:   500 kbps
    Domain Name:                        [DomainName]
    Domain Type:                        Windows 2000
    Applied Group Policy Objects
        Default Domain Policy
        W7PVP Security Templates
    The following GPOs were not applied because they were filtered out
        W7PVP Folder Redirection
            Filtering: Disabled (GPO)
        Local Group Policy
            Filtering: Not Applied (Empty)
        W7PVP Folder Redirection
            Filtering: Disabled (GPO)
    The computer is a part of the following security groups
        BUILTIN\Administrators
        Everyone
        BUILTIN\Users
        NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK
        NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users
        This Organization
        [PCName]$
        Domain Computers
        System Mandatory Level
USER SETTINGS
    CN=xxxxxxxxxxxx,CN=Users,DC=[DomainName],DC=local
    Last time Group Policy was applied: 22/01/2015 at 09:39:27
    Group Policy was applied from:      [ServerName].[DomainName].local
    Group Policy slow link threshold:   500 kbps
    Domain Name:                        [DomainName]
    Domain Type:                        Windows 2000
    Applied Group Policy Objects
        W7PVP Folder Redirection
        W7PVP Folder Redirection
    The following GPOs were not applied because they were filtered out
        Default Domain Policy
            Filtering: Not Applied (Empty)
        Local Group Policy
            Filtering: Not Applied (Empty)
        W7PVP Security Templates
            Filtering: Disabled (GPO)
    The user is a part of the following security groups
        Domain Users
        Everyone
        BUILTIN\Administrators
        BUILTIN\Users
        NT AUTHORITY\INTERACTIVE
        CONSOLE LOGON
        NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users
        This Organization
        LOCAL
        RA_AllowComputerAccess
        WSSUsers
        RA_AllowAddInAccess
        RA_AllowShareAccess
        RA_AllowRemoteAccess
        RA_AllowNetworkAlertAccess
        RA_AllowHomePageLinks
        High Mandatory Level
C:\Windows\system32>
Andrew

How to "migrate" a 10.5 Server-System from a G4 to a G5?

Hi all,
I tried to bring an existing Leopard-Server System from a G4 MDD 1.25GHz to a
G5 Dual 2.5GHz Mac by making a TimeMachine Backup on G4 and bring it back
as a Restored System to my G5 - it didn't work that way... (the G5 did only start
with the Gong, then the Apple appears on the Screen and after that the machine
starts new till the apple appeares again on the Screen (and so on...).
Does anyone know how i could move the hole existing System without wasting
lots of time?
thanks for any help!
Milchfisch

I can't think of why there would be any problem moving an image over since they are both powerPC. Since the time machine restore didn't work how about putting the G5 in target disk mode and using something like carbon copy cloner to image the g5s hard drive.

DPM Server System State and Bare MEtal using SqlServerWriter

HI All,
Having issuing with bare metal backups of a DPM server and was hoping to get some help.
I have a DPM 2010 Server running on server 2008 r2. SQL databases are hosted locally on a non system drive (e)
When I run Windows Server Backup locally on the box to do a bare metal backup (it selects c and d drives along with system state) the backup fails.
vssadmin lsit writers shows the following after the backup fails;
Writer name: 'SqlServerWriter'
   Writer Id: {a65faa63-5ea8-4ebc-9dbd-a0c4db26912a}
   Writer Instance Id: {9a1fdd12-d702-4ffc-914d-4361259cc55f}
   State: [8] Failed
   Last error: Inconsistent shadow copy
Application log shows this;
The backup operation that started at '‎2014‎-‎07‎-‎09T08:30:54.453000000Z' has failed because the Volume Shadow Copy Service operation to create a shadow copy of the volumes being backed up
failed with following error code '2155348129'. Please review the event details for a solution, and then rerun the backup operation once the issue is resolved.
The backup log shows exactly the same error as above.
When I stop the SQL Server VSS Writer service and run the backup it runs just fine, however then my database backup on this server fails.
The C drive partition is marked as active.
Any ideas as to why bare metal backup is using the SQL writer and failing. Is there any way to specify what writer to use?
Thank in advance.

Any ideas as to why bare metal backup is using the SQL writer and failing. Is there any way to specify what writer to use?
You better should ask this the support of the software vendor of "bare metal backup"
Olaf Helper
[ Blog] [ Xing] [ MVP]

What is recommended size of System drive to keep operating system files , paging files and Memory Dump of hyper-v host.

Hi ,
I want to setup hyper-v host with 128 GB RAM , Windows 2012 R2
What is recommended size of System drive to keep operating system files , paging files and Memory Dump?
I tested to using 150 GB , but when the server is crashed, there is no free space to keep memory dump file.
Ramy

Hi Ramy,
For Server 2012R2 the absolute minimum system drive is 32Gb but this assume you have limited RAM or have your Page file located on another drive. It used to be best practice to setup a small page file but MS PFE now suggest leaving windows to manage
the page file size.
Obviously this is not always possible depending on the amount of RAM in the system, but base the system drive around this or offload the Page file to perhaps another drive. On top of this you also need space for the memory dump to be written, potentially
again up to the size of the RAM. Assuming you fire the machine back up after a crash, you need space for the OS, the Page File plus space for the associated dump file.
There is a nice little article here that maybe of assistance: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/13383.best-practices-for-page-file-and-minimum-drive-size-for-os-partition-on-windows-servers.aspx
Kind Regards
Michael Coutanche
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Note: Posts are provided “AS IS” without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose.

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