Well the time has come. I can put it off no longer.

My new hard drive is here. I have my win2k3 server software (msdn universal) and I have run out of space on my little server.

My two possible plans of action are this:

1) Install new drive as the slave drive. Copy the current drive completely to this new drive. The current system is win2k server wtih IIS5 (many test websites) and SQL Server 2000 on it. Once that is in place then I change that drive to the master drive and upgrade to Win2K3 server and hope all stays well.

2) Install new drive as master drive. Reformat it (just in case) and install Win2K3 server, SQL Server 2000 and IIS6. Install .NET Framework 1.1 and remote debugging tools. Then copy my databases and my websites over and recreate all of the virtual directories. Actually not all of them. Many are garbage tests that can disappear.

I know that MS recommends migration over upgrading, but I think in my envronment (I only have the server so that I have a good test environment to emulate my clients) a plain old upgrade might be sufficient.

I am not looking to the physical part of this – installing the drive, doing the master slave thing. I did that a few years ago on my development machine when I switched to a new hard drive and at the same time went from win2k to winxp. When you only do this stuff every 2 or 3 years, it becomes a mystery again.

The sadder part is that I have come to the conclusion that my dev machine is really just maxed out and could use more memory and a new processor. I’ve got a screamin’ 160gig hard drive in there so that’s no problem. I don’t want to contribute to the computer graveyard so I’ll probably just upgrade the box. I tried that a few years ago on my server and ended up having to get a new motherboard and a new case as well.

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