How to Move a Storage Group in a Local Continuous Replication Environment

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Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 will reach end of support on April 11, 2017. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

 

Applies to: Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Exchange Server 2007 SP2, Exchange Server 2007 SP3

This topic describes the recommended way to move a storage group that has been enabled for local continuous replication (LCR). You can use either the Exchange Management Shell or the Exchange Management Console to change the location of log files and system files for an LCR-enabled storage group. In an LCR configuration, there are two sets of storage group configuration files, one for each copy. The locations for both copies can be changed independently or in tandem.

Similar procedures are used to reconfigure the location of a mailbox or public folder database in an LCR-enabled storage group. For detailed steps to move the location of database files in an LCR-enabled storage group, see How to Move a Database in a Local Continuous Replication Environment.

Before You Begin

To perform the following procedure, the account you use must be delegated the following:

  • Exchange Server Administrator role and local Administrators group for the target server

For more information about permissions, delegating roles, and the rights that are required to administer Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, see Permission Considerations.

Procedure

To use the Exchange Management Console to move an LCR-enabled storage group

  1. Open the Exchange Management Console.

  2. In the console tree, expand Server Configuration, and then click Mailbox.

  3. In the result pane, select the server containing the storage group you want to move.

  4. In the work pane, select the storage group to be moved.

  5. In the action pane, click Suspend local continuous replication. When the Administrative Suspend dialog box appears, enter an optional comment and then click Yes to suspend replication.

  6. In the action pane, click Move Storage Group. The Move Storage Group Logs Wizard appears.

  7. Follow step a or b depending on whether you want to move the log files and system files for the active copy, or the passive copy of the database in the storage group:

    1. If you want to move the log files and system files for the active database copy in the storage group, specify the move file locations by clicking Browse for Log files location and System files location.

    2. If you want to move the log files and system files for the passive database copy in the storage group, specify the move file location by clicking Browse for Local continuous replication system files location and Local continuous replication log files.

    Select the file locations, and then click OK to populate the file location fields. Click Next to proceed.

  8. Review the Configuration Summary, and if it is correct, click Move to move the storage group files.

  9. Click Finish to complete the wizard.

  10. In the work pane, select the storage group that was moved.

  11. In the action pane, click Resume local continuous replication.

To use the Exchange Management Shell to move an LCR-enabled storage group

  1. Suspend transaction log replication and replay activity by using the Suspend-StorageGroupCopy cmdlet.

    Suspend-StorageGroupCopy -Identity:<Server\StorageGroupName>

  2. Use the Move-StorageGroupPath cmdlet to change the path information for the storage group in the Active Directory directory service. This cmdlet moves the passive copy of the storage group files. It also dismounts the database in the storage group (if it is not already dismounted) while the move is occurring. Make sure the database in the storage group is dismounted prior to performing the move operation.

    Move-StorageGroupPath -Identity:<Server\StorageGroupName> 
-CopyLogFolderPath:<Newfilepath\StorageGroupName> 
-CopySystemFolderPath:<Newfilepath\StorageGroupName>

    Note

    The paths for the log files and system files are often the same; however, they do not need to be.

    Note

    If you want to move the active storage group files, run the Move-StorageGroupCopy cmdlet with the -LogFolderPath and -SystemFolderPath options. For more information, see the cmdlet topic Move-StorageGroupPath.

  3. Restart replication by using the Resume-StorageGroupCopy cmdlet.

    Resume-StorageGroupCopy -Identity:<Server\StorageGroupName>

  4. Verify that replication for the storage group is proceeding normally. For detailed steps to verify that replication is healthy, see How to View the Status of a Local Continuous Replication Copy.

Note

Step 2 of the Exchange Management Shell procedure can be modified to use the ConfigurationOnly option of the Move-StorageGroupPath cmdlet. This option prevents the command from moving the data. If you use this option, we strongly recommend that you explicitly dismount the database before Step 2 and explicitly mount the database after Step 2. After completing the move in Step 3, you must manually move the data. The advantage of this sequence is that if the move can be accomplished without copying the data, the procedure can be completed more rapidly, thus reducing the length of any outage.

For More Information

For detailed syntax and parameter information, see Suspend-StorageGroupCopy, Move-StorageGroupPath, and Resume-StorageGroupCopy.

For more information about managing your LCR environment, see Managing Local Continuous Replication.