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Hi,

I have never needed to migrate a server before, and thought it would be as simple as copying files from one to another…boy was I mistaken.

We have a file server that is Windows Server 2012 (R1), and it lives on a vmware host server.

I need to retire another vmware host server, so I am moving some things around. I have set up a new server as a Hyper-V host server, and created a new “file” server using Windows Server 2016.

I have re-created the shares like they are on the existing server, and have copied over some non mission critical files in preparation. Is there a tool I should be using? While I have been in IT for a while (old lady here), I am self taught, and had a lousy teacher. I have about 700GB of user files that I need to move.

If someone could point me in the right direction please. Everything I have searched is migrating from 2008, which is timely.

TIA

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Hi Vicky,

We use robocopy to transfer the data to the new server then manually set up the shares in the new server.

Robocopy will keep all the NTFS permissions, timestamps etc.

Hope this helps!

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Well I think a true “migration” is out of the question so you are left with rebuilding and transfering files; and it sounds like that is the path you are on. With that in mind, try TeraCopy https://teracopy.en.softonic.com/ . A helpful tool when moving large quantity of files.

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I am going to be doing this exact thin this weekend. Moving from a physical 2012R2 file server to a new 2019 server as a VM on a Hyper-V server. So far I have installed the server, created all the virtual disks and installed our backup software.

I have then created all the top level file shares, then using robocopy to copy over the directory structure.

Nice explaination of best robocopy switches to use, used this last year to migrate one server and being using the same this Saturday.

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robocopy is useful for copying the files and permissions. This will mirror the source directory to the destinalion directory with security. The /r:1 tells it to only retry once on failure to copy a file.

robocopy /mir /sec /r:1 \\server1\share\source \\server2\share\destination

I recommend piping the output to a file so that you can review any errors. This can be done by adding a tee command if using powershell

robocopy /mir /sec /r:1 \\server1\share\source \\server2\share\destination | tee -FilePath logfilename.txt

The trick in all this is switching all the users to the new server at the same time. You can run this command multiple times to keep up with users changing files before you move them to the new server.

There are a lot of other switches and options for robocopy if the ones I suggested don’t quite suit your needs.

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Unfortunately, I have done this many more times than I care to admit. Over the years I’ve found the following procedure to work well:

You’ve already re-created the shares, but if you had not done that yet, you can export them from the original server and import them to the new:

I’ve found Robocopy to be the best tool for copying the data over. There are a ton of switches, so take a look at all of them and be careful. Also, as stated above you can tee the output but it goes MUCH faster if you just use the log file option instead of both the log file and screen, or just the screen. If I need to “double check” the results, I’ll use Beyond Compare from Scooter software.

Only once have I run into a problem and that was due to a bug in an older version of Robocopy. Copying the “User personal storage” volume from a Netapp to an EMC VNX it would never recognize old versus new files and always want to copy the entire volume.

Good Luck!

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You have several ways how to do this…

You can use Robocopy as other said.

Or you can use handy MS free tool File Server Migration Tool. You only need to create share at the new file server.

Or you can use DFS replication (if you use DFS) to migrate your shares. The big plus is that you can use share at your old server until you have replicated data. Then you only disable share target pointing to the old server and enable share target pointing to the new server. This is transparent way how to migrate data from one server to another. This is also My preferred method how to migrate file server.

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This references two things, DFS Replication and DFS Namespace. They are two different services managed by the same MMC, and the two services do very different things, and can be used independently or in a complementary fashion.

I am a huge fan of DFS Namespaces, as it makes it unnecessary to update any login script, drive mapping, or shortcut. I highly recommend it, but that it a topic for another thread. I much prefer robocopy over DFS Replication to get data to a new server because it is faster, doesn’t waste disk space, and it is very reliable compared to DFS Replication.

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I’ve done something like this moving server 2008 to 2016. If the file server is a member server and not a domain controller MS has a file server migration wizard that uses DFS to migrate. If it’s a domain controller the easiest path I know is make the data share on the new server have the same drive letter as the old one, then you can export the shares and share permissions from the registry [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\LanmanServer\Shares] and import to the new server and then robocopy the data files using /sec /secfix and /mir.

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robocopy is an ideal tool for doing this. The most crucial thing here is that robocopy can properly migrate/copy permissions for the folders/files.

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Seconded. Use Robocopy to migrate Windows Server 2012 VM to 2016.

https://gal.vin/2016/12/13/quick-and-dirty-hyper-v-backup/

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I want to thank everyone for your input. I ended up using a version of robocopy called EasyRoboCopy. I took about 7 hours, but everything is now up and running and users are happy. I love being able to turn to peers for answers.

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