Our IT dept requires we migrate ~100GB of source code and
binaries, from one SAN to another. The file system is NTFS under w2k server.
Some files are readable only by the owner; as a rule most files
are readable by SYSTEM - but we can not count on this.

The source and destination disks will have differing partition sizes;
source will be an HP SAN, the dest an EMC SAN. The disks themselves
are unlikely to be the same brand or model numbers.

I suggested to IT that they use ntbackup, to backup to a file,
but since ntbackup does not support compression,
this would require spare disk space of ~100GB.

Backup and restore via tape has the disadvantage that:

o we use TSM software; as it's configured now - can not backup
files with certain permissions. I'm not able to change the
TSM setup (it's the responsibility of another group).

o it's slow

This has to be done flawlessly over a weekend.

Other than ntbackup, is there any disk to disk backup/restore
approach that would be able to read all our files, and preserve all directory
and file permissions/ownership? I think I know the answer - we should
just use ntbackup.

==
thanks in advance

I probably should skip this message, as I'm no expert, but I won't.

First, if you have permissions setup such that files cannot be backed up,
that is not good. If you have file permissions keeping people out of files,
chances are those files are pretty important to the owner. So, if the files
are important, wouldn't you want to back them up? If I had to do what
you're doing, the FIRST thing that I would do is change this nonsense with
files not being able to be backed up. That is just bad. After that, I'd
ntbackup to a share, and restore on the other SAN. If you have a SAN,
coming across 100 GB of free space shouldn't be an issue. If it is, it's
time to add some more drives anyway.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that the policies and procedures that
are in place in your company are creating this challenge, and I feel that
address those policies will be the real solution. (No offense meant!)


--

Ray at work
Microsoft ASP MVP


"anonymous" <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Our IT dept requires we migrate ~100GB of source code and
> binaries, from one SAN to another. The file system is NTFS under w2k
server.
> Some files are readable only by the owner; as a rule most files
> are readable by SYSTEM - but we can not count on this.
>
> The source and destination disks will have differing partition sizes;
> source will be an HP SAN, the dest an EMC SAN. The disks themselves
> are unlikely to be the same brand or model numbers.
>
> I suggested to IT that they use ntbackup, to backup to a file,
> but since ntbackup does not support compression,
> this would require spare disk space of ~100GB.
>
> Backup and restore via tape has the disadvantage that:
>
> o we use TSM software; as it's configured now - can not backup
> files with certain permissions. I'm not able to change the
> TSM setup (it's the responsibility of another group).
>
> o it's slow
>
> This has to be done flawlessly over a weekend.
>
> Other than ntbackup, is there any disk to disk backup/restore
> approach that would be able to read all our files, and preserve all
directory
> and file permissions/ownership? I think I know the answer - we should
> just use ntbackup.
>
> ==
> thanks in advance
>

We ran a test yesterday on a 16G directory used for the file
portion of one our databases. The files have a special owner and
limited permissions. The directory was backed up to a file w/ntbackup
as an admin (different user than the directory owner), we then renamed
the dir and restored it w/ntbackup. It worked flawlessly. I believe
it took about 90 min to do the backup.

So we continue to lean towards using the ntbackup approach.

--
thanks,
anonymous