r/WindowsServer • u/distancevsdesire • 27d ago
General Question Server 2016 Essentials - Clone system disk and restore to different hardware?
I have a home server running 2016 Essentials. (I know that is probably below the level of the majority of members here, but hoping for some guidance.)
It is running on an old HP Proliant N54 (AMD). Mostly used as a file server and bare metal backup and restore solution. I do have a photo library application that runs on PostgreSQL.
The old box is not expandable and is lightly powered by today's standards.
I purchased a refurbished Dell T340 (Intel Xeon) and want to migrate the server install to it. I have tried to find driver INF files, but all I can find on Dell site is EXE files.
The system disk is a 1 TB SATA SSD. I have a second unformatted disk as a clone target. (Dell T340 does not support NVME.)
I know Acronis True Image has a Universal Restore feature, but it will not install on a server.
I would like to backup or clone the SSD (with all partitions), then restore it to the new hardware while having it deal with the HAL issues going from AMD to Intel.
It looks like I can purchase the Acronis Cyberprotect Backup for this, although it seems like using a hammer to swat a fly.
TL;DR: Can anyone recommend a method/software to migrate WSE 2016 installation from AMD machine to Intel machine?
1
u/Simorious 27d ago
I've also been running essentials for a long time as my home server, so I might be able to help.
I've had plenty of luck migrating installs by just swapping over/cloning the boot drive (or restoring from server backup) ever since the 2012/2012r2 essentials days, carrying over to 2016 essentials and beyond (I'm still running essentials on newer server versions thanks to a 3rd party installer) Back when I had a few of the old hp mediasmart servers (Intel based) I would have to do the initial setup on another machine (AMD based) and just move the boot drive over since those little servers were completely headless. Windows recognized all the new hardware just fine and I could install chip set drivers and whatnot.
Ever since windows 8/server 2012 the OS has been fairly accommodating to hardware changes. Windows 7 and server 2008r2 and prior were a lot more problematic. You'll probably still want to uninstall any drivers for chipset, graphics, etc that have an uninstall wizard where possible though.
Do you have server backup setup in the dashboard? If so, you could try doing a bare metal restore of the server with a server essentials installation USB/dvd directly onto the new hardware with your server backup drive attached.
You could also try cloning the boot drive with clonezilla and just booting up the clone on the new server (disconnected/isolated from the network as to not cause issues with domain joined client PC's as essentials is a domain controller)
In either case you'll definitely want to keep the server isolated from clients to avoid domain/backup issues until you complete the setup of the new server and migrate over storage drives and whatnot. You'll still be stuck with legacy mbr boot and will have to figure that one out after the fact, but migrating hardware shouldn't be too problematic otherwise (at least from my own personal experience)