Hardware for Exchange 2007 - 40 users

[lacasa]

Dell and HP both suggest a RAID 1(SATA) for the OS and RAID 5 (3 SAS drives). This gets expensive. For 40 users am I being foolish to consider just two drives with OS and Exchange mirrored. Or how about still using 5 drives but make them all SATA. Or how about RAID 10 with 4 drives. Would the Dell model PowerEdge 110 with only two drives be okay or again is this foolish. Dell is suggesting their 410 and HP their Proliant ML350 G6.

Currently our ISP hosts our mail. The real need at our office is for shared calendars.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. We are a non-profit so funds are limited.

Thanks.

 

[58sniper]

You need at least 4 drives, IMHO. 2 for OS/paging, 2 for databases/logs. But that leaves you open to data loss if the 2nd volume goes sideways and you have to restore from tape. Ideally, you'd have one volume for OS/paging, 1 for databases, and 1 for logs.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[Zelandakh]

Depends on how much traffic you'll see. It is against Pat's ethics but you could take a 4 disk SATA and RAID5 the lot then carve them up into C (OS), D (Apps), F (store), G (logs).

Yes, you then have everything on the same spindles but at least you have resilience across the lot without too much disk overhead.

On 3gb/s SATA and with likely minimal usage, this might be an option when you are cost constrained.

Certainly it worked for me with more users a dozen years ago!!

But put in as much RAM as you can get in budget!!!

 

[lacasa]

Thanks for info.

Dell just requoted a PowerEdge 410 with 8GB RAM with 5 3gb/s SATA drives RAID 1/RAID 5 for about $2500. For 40 users and the lower demand ( I hope), SAS drives are not necessary, but I could always upgrade later with this same box.

The key interest at my non-profit is sharing calendars for appointments among the various counsellors. As well we need to schedule two conference rooms. Email is not currently backed up on indivdual clients, and a central Exchange server would make this easier, but Exchange will add more maintenance.

 

[58sniper]

For 40 users, Small Business Server would be a great fit.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[lacasa]

What I can't understand is that Microsoft recommends two DCs for replication purpose, but I believe SBS does not allow for two DCs? Dell and HP both sell their basic servers with SBS and RAID 1 only and Microsoft recommends no more than 50 users. So are most businesses happy with that simple SBS RAID 1 scenario. I don't mean to be naive (Dell HP want the bigger sale), but Dell seems to be adamant that Exchange should be on it's own box with RAID 1/5.

 

[58sniper]

You can certainly have multiple DCs in an SBS environment. You can have as many as you want. SBS just has to hold all of the FSMO roles.

I don't use RAID 5 for anything. RAID 1 for OS & paging, and logs, and RAID 1+0 for databases. Even on my home lab boxes. But that's just me. RAID 5 isn't the best performer for Exchange.

Dell will sell you a server any way you want it, and you can certainly change things after it arrives.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[Zelandakh]

Non profits get cheaper software deals so SBS isn't always more competitively priced in that arena.

Changing down from SATA disks isn't always a good plan. Get them and use RAID5 or RAID1, whatever you can use from whatever you can afford.