How to move shared cluster resources to new hard disk drives by using the same drive letters in Exchange 2003 in a clustered environment

This article describes how to move shared cluster resources to new hard disk drives in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003.

Consider the following scenario. You are running Exchange 2003 in active/passive mode in a clustered environment. Additionally, you want to replace the hard disk drives that contain shared cluster resources. In this scenario, you can use a method that switches drive letters for the new drives to match the drive letters for the old drives to complete the data transfer process. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Use Disk Management for the shared cluster resource to create new partitions on the new disk or disks. Assign logical unit numbers (LUN) if it is required.
2. Assign drive letters to these partitions as required. These drive letters will be used temporarily until you change them to reflect the existing drives that you are replacing.
3. Copy all data from the existing shared drives to the new drives. Use the xcopy command to copy the data. When you use the xcopy command, click No if you are prompted to replace anything in the "System Volume Information" folder or in the Recycle folder on the destination drive. Use the xcopy command as follows:
   xcopy Source_Drive_Letter:\ Destination_Drive_Letter:\ /o /x /e /h /k
   Note When you use the xcopy command together with these switches, NTFS folder and file permissions will be copied. Share permissions will not be copied.
4. In Cluster Administrator, take the source drives offline, and then delete the drive entries.
5. In Disk Management, change the drive letters for the old drives.
6. Change the drive letters for the new drives to match the original drive letters for the old drives.
7. In Cluster Administrator, create a new cluster disk resource for the new drives.
8. Configure the System Attendant resource to depend on the new cluster disk resource.
9. Bring the new cluster disk resource online.
10. In the EXCHSRVR directory of the new drives, add the following shares if the folders exist.

    Folder name	Share name
    Address	Address
    RES	Resources$
    Server_Name.log	Server_Name.log

11. Assign the following permissions on these shares.

    Account name	Permissions
    Administrators	Full Control
    Computer_Account$	Full Control
    Everyone	Read

12. In Cluster Administrator bring the Exchange Server cluster resource online.

If you want to move the EXCHSRVR directory on all nodes of the Exchange servers in the cluster, you must move the MTA resource on Node 1. Then, move the MSSearch resource on all nodes.

Any action plan that includes moving the MTA resource is a complex process that is risky to implement. Additionally, we do not support any such plan. The MSSearch resource can be deleted if you are not using content indexing and if you do not plan to use it. However, moving the MSSearch resource is more difficult. Moving the MTA resource is much more complex. Therefore, we do not recommend or officially support moving the MTA resource or the MSSearch resource.

It is easier to change the location of the Mailroot and VS1 folders, the database files, the transaction log files, the tracking log files, and the working directory. Most users may want to locate these functions on different disks for performance reasons. In these situations, the method that this article describes is a practical way to do this.

For more information about how to manage Exchange Server clusters, visit the following Microsoft Web site: