SBS 2008 disk configuration 1

[nritech]

Hello everyone,

I'm about to buy a new server and migrate from SBS 2003 Premium to SBS 2008 Standard. I asked Dell to configure my disks as follows:

3 Spindles:


RAID 1: Two 146GB 15K RPM Serial-Attach SCSI 3Gbps 3.5in hotplug (for OS, APPS & Swap)
RAID 5: Three 300GB 15K RPM Serial-Attach SCSI 3Gbps 3.5in hotplug (for Exchange logs & User Data)
RAID 5: Three 300GB 15K RPM Serial-Attach SCSI 3Gbps 3.5in hotplug (for Exchange database)


Here's what Dell suggested:

2 spindles:

RAID 1: Two 146GB 15K RPM Serial-Attach SCSI 3Gbps 3.5in hotplug (for OS, APPS & Swap)
RAID 1 + 0: Four 300GB 15K RPM Serial-Attach SCSI 3Gbps 3.5in hotplug (for Exchange Logs, Exchange database and user data)

With this configuration my Exchange logs and Exchange database won't be separated.

Me, I would like to have them on two different spindles according to what I read on different books and as I always did with other version of Exchange.

However, Dell assures me that I don't need to separate them because of the speed of the disk drive.

I am not an expert with hardware and I would like to have your suggestions.

Basically, my question is: Do I need to separate my logs and database even if I have super fast disk drives?

Thank you!

Nicolas

 

[mofusjtf]

I would say no. I have a number of SBS 2k8 servers with a simple RAID 1+0 with SATA drives and they run just fine. Most are less than 25 user environments.

 

[PaulGillespie]

How many users do you have?
My common Configs are:
4 x SAS drives in RAID 10 Partitioned into C, D and E (swap).

4 x SATA drives in RAID 10 Partitioned into C, D and E (swap).

2 x SAS RAID 1 for OS and swap and then 4 x SAS RAID 10 for data.

Don't ever user RAID 5 for exchange. Give your server lots of RAM - minimum of 8GB.

 

[nritech]

Thanks for your help!

It will be setup this way:

Disk:

RAID 1 for OS & Applications (HDD,146G 15K SAS,3G,3.5)

RAID 1 for Exchange database (HDD,146G 15K SAS,3G,3.5)

RAID 1 for Exchange logs,DATA & Swap (HDD, 300GB 15K SAS,6G,3.5)

RAM:

16GB,8x2GB,1333,2R UDIMM, 2 PA

Processor:

Two E5640,2.66GHz,12M,1066MHzMaxMem

Nicolas

 

[ShackDaddy]

Ncolas, the configuration you just described is the one I prefer: three RAID 1 sets. Particularly if you choose to go with SATA instead of SAS, since then disk space is no issue. I don't really think there's a good case for RAID5 in the SMB. I think RAID5 was supposed to be used for 8+ disks...

BTW, between Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007, the disk I/O used by Exchange was reduced by 70%, so the disk requirements as far as speed are actually less for Exchange 2007 than they were for 2003. And between E2007 and E2010 they were reduced an ADDITIONAL 70%, which is why internal M$ is now putting a 500-user database and logs on a single SATA disk:

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/...lture=en-US&EventID=1032448860&CountryCode=US

Dave Shackelford MVP
ThirdTier.net
TrainSignal.com

 

[nritech]

Dave,

By the way, I'm going to migrate our SBS 2003 server to SBS 2008 next week. I will use SwingIT migration, so I wont have to rename my server.

Thanks teacher for your Train Signal course on SBS 2008.

Nicolas