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.

I’m feeling a little burned out. I got a taste of life before user group/ineta/blogging/etc when my friends would not let me near my computer for the entire long weekend of Thanksgiving. I finally got to hike on the parts of the Long Trail that are accessible from our back yard and also on Camels’ Hump which is a mere 4 mile drive to that trail head. So I’m trying to focus on my client work (though I have to get out the INETA Newsletter for December!!) and some non-technical things that have been catching my attention.

I finally noticed how many damned posts I wrote in November. It’s completely insane. But I had SO much information bubbling around in my head after PDC that I absolutely had to get it OUT of my head and blogging was the perfect outlet and better storage system than my poor brain. I think now I’m just feeling a little drained (err “empty headed”?) and now need to focus again on some of my client work. But then I look and see how much is going on with people’s experiments with Whidbey, Avalon, Longhorn, etc and am already terrified of getting stuck in the mud and falling behind. Eeek! It’s a pretty scary trap to fall into.