New Mail Dell Server

[Javy1]

Hey Guys,

Just acquired a new Dell PowerEdge 2600 Dell Server with PERC4/Di (2 Internal Channel) embedded RAID, 1x6 Backplane, 4 /36 Gigs SCSI 15RPM Ultra320 hard drives. This server will be use for mail (Exchange 2000) running windows 2000. I will like to know what will be the best RAID configuration taking in consideration expandability and redundancy. (First time playing around with RAIDS)


Thanks


Javy

 

[NickFerrar]

I would just use one big RAID 5 container. Another option would be a RAID 1 mirror for the system files and a RAID 5 set for the data but that would require another disk (2 for the mirror and 3 for the RAID 5 set), this would better balance IO.

We have a 500-user Exchange install on a similar system to yours with a simple RAID 5 set and don't have IO issues.

 

[superscouser]

With just 4 disks, I would also implement a single RAID5. AS always the optimal config will depend and number of suers and expected traffic. For a large number of mail users and large mailboxes, I would use RAID1 for the O/S & App, RAID1 for transaction logs, and RAID 5 for the mailstore.

 

[sauce21]

RAID 3 is alway a good choice, since you have 4 hard drives it will use three of them to store the data and the 4th drive to hold parity information. If a data drive goes down, the parity drive can rebuild the new replacement drive. If the parity drive goes down the other three data drives will rebuild a new parity.

RAID 5 is also a choice. In this case the drives will all be seperated into 4 blocks. 3 of the blocks per drive will be used to store data. The 4th block on each drive will hold the parity info. This is also a faster and more efficient way to run certain platforms. What OS are you putting on it (RH, Win, Novell)?

Sauce

 

[Javy1]

Hey!

I actually went with a huge RAID5 Configuration. I Created different volumes for OS, APPS, LOGS, Information Store. If hard drive fail will I have more issues with this type of configuration? I can always get the test users back to the old exchange and start from scratch if necessary. I am running W2K and Exchange 2K (SP3, OS & Exchange)

Thanks,

Javy

 

[johnv20]

Hi,
probably your best bet would be to use 3 of the drives
as a raid 5 & set the last drive up as a hot spare, that
way if one of the 1st drives goes down there won't be any performance degredation

 

[NickFerrar]

I don't think PERC supports RAID 3 does it?

As for the original poster - your multi-volume config should be fine.

 

[doomhamur]

I run all my servers with a RAID 1 mirror for the OS and a RAID 5 for the data. On larger systems i also have a drive for the page file on a differant scsi card channel (this really speeds up mail and database functions). with only 4 drives i would go with RAID 5. it might be worth it to by 2 more drives for a mirror to put the OS on.

Good luck Doomhamur
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