Hey guys!

I'm currently thinking (no, planning) of migrating the upstairs box from xp to *nix*
The problem I have is that right now it hosts over 310 thousand mp3's, 2 terrabytes of 700mb DVD rips (legal!) and is hosting Ventrilo for 60+ active users and Map server for an online game called Ultima online.

That aside, it has years of digital photography and just so much stuff I don't think I'll ever be able to sort through the rest.

I do have knowledge in both bash and *nix stuff in general, although it is somewhat limited.

The box in question is a p4, 3.4 (prescot) with around 2gig of old DDR ram and a integrated intel chip/realtek sound.
Its basically a trash auction pc I bought and gave a decent cpu/memory - but its where everything is.

There is a raid set up comprising of 8 IDE's and 3 scsi's, the scsis's being a stripe for the photo's as my wife seems to think they are worth more then 11 years of movie and music ripping.

Any suggestions would be great, as I really want to just get M$ the fuck out of my home all together.

Tony.

Well you didn't give a whole lot of details here, but there are a few obvious issues.

The first thing that comes to mind is the file system on your current array. While Linux has read support (and usable, if not official, write support) for NTFS, it would be pretty unsafe to try and use that on a Linux server for long time storage. That means you would need to switch the drives over to a Unix file system (I would suggest XFS, as it works well with large files. It is what I use on my file server to hold movies/ISOs) but the problem is there is no way to actually converting from NTFS over to...well, anything else.

This is sticky issue even on a small scale, but with 2 TB, you have a real dilemma on your hands. You would need to copy everything off of the drives to another storage medium, format the array, and then put everything back on. Not only would this take a long time, there is the issue of finding another 2 TB of storage just kicking around.

As difficult as it may be, you need to get those files over to a natively supported FS for the sake of stability and safety.

Beyond that little trip up, I would suggest you get comfortable with the Linux server environment before actually making the leap with this project, Setup a few "disposable" machines as various servers and see how things go, get the hang of how it all works, etc. Perhaps you could move over the Ventrillo server to a Linux machine and see how that goes for a week or so. That sort of thing.

I have migrated many Windows machines to Unix over the years, both professionally and for private individuals. It isn't hard to replicate the functionality of the Windows machine as long as you know what you are doing (in fact, I can configure a Linux server in much less time than it would take to configure a Windows server with the same functions). It doesn't sound like you have ant specific tasks that you would have problems doing under Linux. Ventrillo has a Linux server, and I know there are a bunch of Linux clients/servers for UO.

How confident are you in your backups ???.
Striping is for performance - even (hardware) RAID breaks. I've had a lightning strike (to a tree next to the house) blast straight through a UPS ...

Spend the time to do it right - MS3FGX seems to have covered it pretty well. Personally I'd setup a separate box, but it appears you may not have that option.

Ok, so basically I cant really "migrate" anything?

Are we establishing that I cant do this unless I move everything to an array of equal or bigger size? , Because I really cant afford to do that right now.

I'd have thought there would be the option (somewhere) for this very kind of thing but then I don't really know what I'm talking about.

Well no, I don't think that's strictly what's been said.

You could probably jump straight over *now* - using all your data as-is.
Be it on your head, not ours.
When you get an issue on that (NTFS) filesystem, you'll need to run (M$oft) chkdsk. Needs a Windoze operating system present on the disk - even if run from the CD.

Don't expect any sympathy from this little black duck.

If you want to play in the interim, I'd suggest you look at VirtualBox - easy to install, supports Linux (well !!!) as a client on Windoze, and you can set up shares so you can see how/if things will run with your current data.
Handles bridging for second LAN cards.
Pretty damn slick.

Actually, Vm ware is fucking perfect for this, why didn't I think of that!

Thanks a ton,
(fellow Ozi I see

If it ain't broke...