NT Server Configuration and page file settings

[TDK22]

I've to install and configure a new NT Server. The machine is a Compaq 370 rack montable. 2 Processors 1.266 Ghz Intel. 1 Gb Ram. 2 hard disk. 9 Gigabyte in raid 0. 1 hard disk 36 Gigabyte Scasi.

Which is the best system configuration??

how have i set the page file??

 

[greg013]

It's unclear from your post if you have 2 or 3 hard drives in the box. If you have two, I'd recommend a mirror configuration. If you have three, I'd recommend a RAID-5 configuration (stripe set with parity).

 

[TDK22]

I have 3 different hard disk: 2 by 9 GigaByte and 1 by 36 Giga Byte.
2 Processors 1.266 Ghz Intel. 1 Gb Ram.

How have i set the page file??
Which is the the best system configuration??

 

[ShackDaddy]

Do you have a RAID card on the system that you can use to handle mirroring, or would you have to use software RAID?

How you set up the system really depends on the sort of data you are putting on it and how horrible it would be if you lost either 1) the operating system or 2) your data partition. If this is a web server, and you get nightly backups, I would mirror the 2 9gb drives and put the operating system on them. I'd also install the web site on them, assuming the site isn't really all that big, and stick the page file on the 36gb drive. If this is a web server that has a lot of streaming content or other large files, I'd put the data directory for the site on the 36gb drive. Web servers usually have a lot of static content that doesn't need to be preserved as carefully, since it can be backed up adequately every 24 hours.

If this is a database server, and you are sort of smart, but still not wanting to spend much money, I'd buy two more 36gb drives and a RAID card, and create a RAID5 array for your SQL/Oracle data and logs. And still back it up nightly. If you were really smart and had the money, I'd recommend RAID0+1 with an extra 2-drive mirror for log files.

The default page file size will probably be 1.5 gig. Set the page file min and max size both to 2 gig.

ShackDaddy

 

[TDK22]

Thank you very much, ShackDaddy for your explanation.
Let me say you something more about the server i'm going to configure.
The NT Server will be:
1- A repository server for all the project's documentation.
2- The Select Server.
3- Sometimes the web Server (IIS4) , but with few instances.
4- The Development Server for C++ programmers.
5- The Development Server for forte programmers.8Few Effort)

Thanks in advance for your help
bye

 

[ShackDaddy]

Ok, I'd install the operating system and your development applications on the 36gb drive. This would also be the drive that you would boot to. I'd then put your web server's content directories and your project documentation on the 9gb stripe set (D. I figure you'd want to limit the stripe set to more or less static data that you would want fast access to, while you are most likely to install large coding libraries and new applications within the Program Files directory on the 36gb C: drive. Set the pagefile at 2gb and keep it on the stripe set also. Make sure that you have nightly backups.

Other people might do things differently, but these are the choices I would make, given the resources you mentioned.

ShackDaddy

 

[Jpoandl]

I think you may want to buy more hard drives to provide better fault tolerance of all data drive. However, with what you got, Shackdaddy makes solid reccomendation.

In addition, here is the pagefile information you were looking for:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q197379

Joseph L. Poandl
MCSE 2000

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