Quote Originally Posted by bplex
4. Go to my registrar and make the changes to my name servers. Depending on who your registrar is, this can take anywhere from 1-72 hours......One thing to note, never name your servers with the same name as your name servers. Always use a name that is different, such as server1.server.com, etc.
Actually what I did was changed the dns on one of the name servers (secondary specifically) so that in theory there won't be any down time. I did name the second server the same name as the ns2 - but I believe you when you say I shouldn't. Been doing it for a year now, hasn't SEEMED to harm anything... but I can see where confusion can set in.

I figure by moving only one name server at a time, "the internet" will look to the secondary only in case of failure of the primary. When I know the secondary ip address has propagated, I'll kill the first, so dns will then be handled by the second and it will refer requests to the new server. Meanwhile, I've set all the dns records on server one to point to server two (execpt the ns1 record) so if any changes are made, they'll be to the "correct" website. As soon as I did that, within minutes the sites started pinging to the new server.

I appreciate your reply a lot, at least I know I'm on the right track. Now if this server2 ip address would just go ahead and propagate for me then I'll be in business.