Problem

A Forum reader recently asked:

"I have a client with Groupwise 7.0.2 on a Netware 6.5 SP6 box. They're running out of disk space so we decided to buy an external RAID. I have all Groupwise-related files, including system, on a volume that's called "Grpwise".

So I thought of stopping Groupwise, copying all data to a client PC, and deleting the existing volume. After that, I would create a new volume on the RAID with the same name, copy all the stuff to it, start Groupwise, and all should work fine without any changes. Is that possible?"

And here's the response from Pat Hopkins ...

Solution

One option is to use a product called Portlock Storage Manager to make a drive image of your old volume (while the volume is offline). It can create the image on another server with sufficient disk space. Then do what you need to drop the old volume, then restore the image to the RAID. The restore process will take care of creating the volume and pool. That
way, nothing gets lost during a file copy.

I've had enough problems with doing file copies that I'm nervous about moving large amounts of data that way. I've used PortLock to image several of my larger servers, some of which have RAID arrays larger than a terrabyte, and it works great. In the interests of full disclosure, I need to say that I am NOT an employee of PortLock nor do I have any interest in the company other than using and liking their products. Their web site is http://www.portlock.com.