What should go on a DC?

[donjohnson]

We have a star topology in our enterprise, with 6 locations. At the hub, someone a long time ago decided to use the DC (which is also the primary DHCP server) as also a central file repository accessed by people from all the other locations. We are currently at a point where we cannot reset a password due to an "out of space" condition. Our backup DC is also one of two IIS servers, and is a little slower machine.
My questions are - how is your network configured - is your DC only used for network processing, or do you run other applications on it? Then, if we want to migrate to a dual-drive configuration (splitting the shared file system out), are there any "gotchas" we need to look out for? Finally, would you recommend splitting the shared files to another machine, or is a separate drive in the DC machine acceptable?

Thanks!
Don Johnson

 

[adcfaq]

DC should be DC only. But, for s&m company, i will suggest to set up at least 2 DCs, on each DC, u may set up f/p, DNS, DHCP, wINS, that';s it. for iis, better separate.

in ur case, if DC is out of space, u may consider move the ntds.dit and log files to a different partition, rather than file server partition.

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Directory Services/Exchange Consultant

 

[supergino]

I generally use the DC primarily for DNS and DHCP. I have used a DC on a separate drive as a file share also. I guess it depends on the environment, equipment and OS you are stuck with. Since storage is so cheap now, I would just use another drive in the DC for file shares and use the same server as a print server.

 

[pgaliardo]

I am going through the same thing right now. I inherited a server that is our main DC but also hosts all of our file storage. It is really slowing down the network. I prefer to keep DC's as clean as possible, maybe just run DNS and DHCP off of it. We are also using the DC as the main print server, which is really killing it. I am in the process of moving printers to a dedicated Print Server and files to NAS.

 

[donjohnson]

Thanks for all the guidance. I have ordered a new server, and will leave my old machine as the DC with DHCP, DNS, time, etc. - everything but files. The new machine will be primarily a file server (we also want to move user files from their desktops to a centrally managed location, since they move desks frequently), but will also handle backup DC requests. I think we will then remove the DC role from the IIS server.

Thanks again - I'll let you know how it turns out!

Don