I figured that if there were a whole lot of 36GB drives, then there would be
lots of users. For performance reasons, on a large server, I would spring
for a dedicated pair of disks for the transaction logs.
Ed Crowley MCSE+Internet MVP
Tech Consultant
Compaq Computer Corporation
All your base are belong to us.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Linton Smith
(WBTQ)
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 8:21 AM
To: Exchange Discussions
Subject: RE: 36gb Drives in RAID 5 array?
The following arrangement works well in larger servers and isn't so wasteful
of disk:
Mirror a pair of 9 GB (or bigger) drives and logically partition them into
drives C: (for the OS - 3 or 4 GB) and E: (for logs - remaining disk space).
Create a stripe set of whatever size drives and make this drive F:. (in
this example, drive D is the CD-ROM). Install the OS on C:. Install
Exchange on F:, which will by default put the databases, logs, MTA and IMS
queues, message tracking logs and everything that will be randomly accessed
by Exchange on F:. Move the transaction logs to E:. If you really want to
tweak performance, you can move the page file to F:, and hack the registry
to move the event log files to F: as well.
Once the OS starts up, the system should make little use of drive C:, so the
mirror set is effectively dedicated to the sequential transaction log
read/writes on E:. This gives you full disk redundancy and virtually
identical performance optimization with a minimum of 5 drives instead of 7.
Linton
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Crowley [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 7:43 PM
To: Exchange Discussions
Subject: RE: 36gb Drives in RAID 5 array?
In general, all other things being equal, larger disks are faster because
the tracks (cylinders) are closer together, reducing seek time, which is
generally the most important number in disk performance. This is especially
true with Exchange's IS (which is what you'd put on a RAID-5 volume), which
is pretty much random access.
You should definitely put your OS on its own RAID-1 mirrored pair and your
IS transaction logs on their own RAID-1 mirrored pair. 36GB drives would
likely be overkill for such things, so you could buy smaller disks for these
two pairs if they're still cheaper.
Ed Crowley MCSE+Internet MVP
Tech Consultant
Compaq Computer Corporation
All your base are belong to us.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Mark Harford
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2001 5:52 AM
To: Exchange Discussions
Subject: 36gb Drives in RAID 5 array?
We are debating whether 36gb disks are fast enough to use in a RAID5 array
or whether they really only ought to be used in RAID1 or RAID0+1 arrays.
Planned configuration: -
Exchange 2000 user server (2000 users)
Compaq Proliant DL580
5304/128 Raid Controller
OS & Pagefile on dedicated RAID1 pair
Exchange Logs on dedicated RAID1 pair
Exchange Information Store on either
RAID5 + online spare array of 14*36GB disks OR
RAID0+1 array of 14*36Gb disks
The RAID5 array would give us more space and so be cheaper, but could affect
performance.
Anyone have experience or opinions on this type of setup?
Thanks
Mark
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