SBS 2003 Swing Migration to SBS 2011 on a Proliant ML350 G5

[AainR]

I know I should have given this feedback, last year, but like you all, I’ve been very busy.  I’m hoping that others, as well as HP Technicians will see this and address it.

Here’s the scenario….

I want to upgrade an installation of SBS 2003 to SBS 2011 on the same server.  I know that you can’t do an “in place” upgrade as SBS 2003 is 32-bit, and SBS 2011 is 64-bit.  The server hardware can handle it (Proliant ML350 G5 - 2 quad-core Xeon 5420, 13 GB RAM).  We bought it a few years ago, knowing that a simple CPU and RAM upgrade would enable us to do this.

In last year’s upgrade to SBS 2008, I followed Microsoft’s documentation for a swing migration.  That is,

OldServer   >>  migrate to >>  TempServer  >>  migrate to  >>  OldServer

I am concerned because I tried this last year from SBS 2003 to SBS 2008 64-bit and here are some on the road blocks that I hit trying to install SBS 2008 on the OldServer.  In the end, the upgrade never happened. I just don't want that to happen, again.

1. OS install without the SmartStart CD resulted in a failed installation as no drivers were present for the hardware, except the storage controller.

2. Using SmartStart, I noticed that it prompted for an Administrator password, which SBS 2008 does not even require.  This causes an interruption in the logon process but is easily addressed.

3. Using SmartStart to do a Clean installation resulted in the installation to taking 4 hours at the “Finalizing/Completing Installation” phase of the Windows installation process.

4. Using SmartStart, it does not detect the the USB flash drive with the Answer file so it does not start the SBS installation in “Migration Mode”.  (It wasn’t until after the 4 hour ‘finalization phase’ was this made aware to me.)

Unfortunately, I did not have another HP server to test the SmartStart issues, and I still do not have an HP server to test with.

This Christmas, I will be attempting to upgrade from SBS 2003 to SBS 2011.  I am hoping that all my previous issues have been addressed with the latest SmartStart version.

Can anyone provide any insight, feedback, or recommendations to this?  It would be greatly appreciated.

[Mark Harford]

Hi,

Did you ever get this to work?

thanks

Mark

[James Adgate]

Hello:

I am in the same boat as you, with an ML 350 G5, with an SBS 2003 installation that will be at end of life support soon. While theoretically the installation of SBS 2011 should work because the server supports a 64 OS, HP will not be providing SBS 2011 driver and software support for it so you would have to pray that the Microsoft supplied drivers on their installation media would work. As far as HP driver support, SBS 2008 and its variants are the end of the line for this server.  Your only other alternative might be to look look into other open source and SBS alternatives such as Zarafa, Zentyal and SME.

You can confirm this by doing a driver and software search under this model on the HP web site.

Best,

Jim A.