Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

  • Congratulations strongm on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Moving exchange

Status
Not open for further replies.

reynolwi

IS-IT--Management
Sep 7, 2006
452
US
Ok... I have a somewhat newer server coming which will be replacing our current exchange server. Im just looking for some input and see what suggestions some of yall might have.

The newer server is a p4 2.4ghz with 512mb ram. Its going to be upgraded to atleast 2gb but im thinking of just going to 3gb or maybe 4gb. Its coming with a 120gb SATA drive, and im going to add a 300gb SATA drive which will be just for the Mailbox Store, Public Folder Store, Queue, and Transaction Logs. I know we should use RAID but we didnt have that luxury and since there are only maybe 15 total users i shouldnt really have to worry. Im thinking maybe an external HDD for backups. We had been backing up to a seperate internal hdd in the current server. Ive gotta find some fairly reasonably priced Backup software because we are still using NTBackup.

Also going to be installing Blackberry Enterprise Server Express 4.1 on the new server since its just 1 user at the moment and RIM says as long as its under 15 users its okay and somewhat recommended. And ive been told by the higher up i need to put sharepoint services 3.0 on the new exchange server as well cause they want to move the sharepoint sites to the newer server even though i told them it and exchange are going to keep the server bogged down.

What suggestions do you all have?

Wm. Reynolds
RRWDS | TxPSS


- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Network Error:
Hit any user to continue
 
Definatley do NOT store the Transaction Log Files and the Mail Stores on the same hard drive. Keep them on seperate physical drives. So in your case I'd but the OS / Apps / Log files on the 120Gb drive and then store the MailStores on the 300GB Drive. Keepinig them seperate will help protect you from one of the disks failing.

you can perform exchange backups using NTBackup that is part of the OS. When you install exchange this gets upgrade to make it Exchange aware and will backup your mailstores for you.

If you are going to be running Exchange / BES / Sharepoint on the same box (and I wouldn't recommend it, but I know what tight budgets are like). Definatley go for 4GB of RAM.
 
There is nothing wrong with putting all on the same drive, more important is your back-up!
One could argue, if 1 drive fails, etc... so what? If 1 drive fails where there would just be part of Exchange, Exchange will fail anyway,

Get a decent back-up solution, and think about the cost you may incur if you don't!

Marc
[sub]If 'something' 'somewhere' gives 'some' error, expect random guesses or no replies at all.
Free Tip: The F1 Key does NOT destroy your PC!
[/sub]
 
Yes exchange will fail if either of the drive dies but if the MailStore drive failes then you can restore exhcange from backup and then reply the log files from the other drive to get you back to the point in time the failure happened.

If your company is happy only being able to restore back to your last backup then putting them on one drive is fine. But given the costs of drives I rather spend £100 and have the option .. it sure definately beats explaining to the CEO why he's lost all of todays e-mails :)
 
Not using RAID is a bad idea. Even for one user.

Putting Sharepoint on that server isn't a good idea, either.

Keep the transaction logs and databases on separate arrays.

Max the server at 4GB of RAM, the most that Exchange 2003 can use.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -
 
i told them that sharepoint on the server is not a good idea. That would keep the server bogged down between sharepoint and exchange.

The server was kind of a "trade off". A client of ours gave us the server and it didnt have RAID. It does have SATA so im thinking maybe it can do RAID using the SATA ports. I know some of the newer motherboards support SATA raid. I havent seen the newer server yet since i wont get it till the 9th of April.

No matter what the mailbox store and public folder stores will be on a seperate drive away from the OS and transaction log and queue stores.


Wm. Reynolds
RRWDS | TxPSS


- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Network Error:
Hit any user to continue
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top