We have a situation where we have an aging Windows 2003 File Server Cluster that we'd like to move to a standalone Windows Server 2008 R2 VM that resides in our Hyper-V R2 installation. We see no need to keep the Clustering as Hyper-V is now providing our Failover/Redundancy. Usually, in a standalone file server migration we migrate the data, preserving NTFS permissions and then export the sharing permissions from the registry and import them on the new server. This does not appear possible in this instance, as the 2003 cluster stores the sharing permissions quite differently. My question is, how would one perform this type of migration? Is it even possible? My current lead is the File Server Migration Toolkit, however I can find no information on the net about migrating from cluster to standalone, only the opposite. Please help.
UPDATE: We ended up getting the data copied over (permissions intact), but had to recreate the shares manually by hand. It was a bit of a pain but it did in the end work out.
Best Answer
Use DFS to replicate the existing shares to the new system and then remove the old server as a target/member when the data has transferred. Once it finishes the initial sync, you can disable referrals to the old server to make sure nobody is updating the 'old' location before removing it.
In response to 'we see no need to keep clustering', you will take a hit when the system reboots for Windows Updates, etc. I don't know how important that is to you, just mentioning it.