Creating LUNS on SAN for MS Exchange Data

Can anyone recommendations on best practices for creating LUNS on their SAN
specifically for storing their MS Exchange data. I have an EMC CX700 SAN and
I'm also looking for info on creating partitions/volumes of a RAID set.

John
Thu Mar 13 11:11:18 CDT 2008

If the write penalty of a proposed RAID type is higher than the read/write
ratio of your application, then the proposed RAID type is inappropriate.

Using this rule of thumb, RAID 5, with a write penalty of 4, is not
appropriate for Exchange 2003 with a read/write ratio of 3:1 or 2:1, nor is
it appropriate for Exchange 2007 with a read/write ration of 2:1 or 1:1.
Use RAID 10.

For Exchange 2007, use the MS sizing calculator to determine the layout and
IO requirements. For Exchange 2003, refer to "Optimizing Storage for
Exchange Server 2003".


"Rafavic" <Rafavic@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C4A821E2-3727-4552-9D57-AD4AB9F40E3A@microsoft.com...
> Can anyone recommendations on best practices for creating LUNS on their
> SAN
> specifically for storing their MS Exchange data. I have an EMC CX700 SAN
> and
> I'm also looking for info on creating partitions/volumes of a RAID set.

Rafavic
Thu Mar 13 11:20:04 CDT 2008

Thanks John

"John Fullbright" wrote:

> If the write penalty of a proposed RAID type is higher than the read/write
> ratio of your application, then the proposed RAID type is inappropriate.
>
> Using this rule of thumb, RAID 5, with a write penalty of 4, is not
> appropriate for Exchange 2003 with a read/write ratio of 3:1 or 2:1, nor is
> it appropriate for Exchange 2007 with a read/write ration of 2:1 or 1:1.
> Use RAID 10.
>
> For Exchange 2007, use the MS sizing calculator to determine the layout and
> IO requirements. For Exchange 2003, refer to "Optimizing Storage for
> Exchange Server 2003".
>
>
> "Rafavic" <Rafavic@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:C4A821E2-3727-4552-9D57-AD4AB9F40E3A@microsoft.com...
> > Can anyone recommendations on best practices for creating LUNS on their
> > SAN
> > specifically for storing their MS Exchange data. I have an EMC CX700 SAN
> > and
> > I'm also looking for info on creating partitions/volumes of a RAID set.
>
>
>

Oliver
Thu Mar 13 12:27:45 CDT 2008

Speak to EMC too, or at least check their website, they have great white
papers on storage for Exchange 2003 and 2007.

For example for storage for Exchange 2007 you should use diskpart to set the
primary align on the partitio to 64, and then format the LUN in 64k blocks.

Oliver

John
Thu Mar 13 13:09:29 CDT 2008

Disk alignment is a mixed bag. Back in the days of disks with a fixed
geometry (when was the last time you saw a 9GB SCSI drive) it made a big
difference. Toady, disks have a variable number of sectors per track and
disk alignment has more to do with lining up cache slots or the
virtualization layer than anything else. Some vendors already do this for
you and some vendors don't. Check with your vendor first before attempting
this.

Netapp does align the start of the partition with the underlying blocks at
the virtualization layer when you select the LUN type. There is the issue
of virtualization platforms like VMWare, Virtual Server, or Hyper V, and
lining up the virtuals disk with blocks on the filesystem of the host as
well. For this, Netapp has published a paper, TR-3593. It's an interesting
read, and shows you how to use the perfstat counters on the filer to check
alignment (1.4 Counters that indicate improper alignment). You can access
the perfstat counters using perfmon from a Windows host.




"Oliver Moazzezi [MVP]" <o.moazzezino@spamfreenet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:uAUeO%23ShIHA.5088@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Speak to EMC too, or at least check their website, they have great white
> papers on storage for Exchange 2003 and 2007.
>
> For example for storage for Exchange 2007 you should use diskpart to set
> the primary align on the partitio to 64, and then format the LUN in 64k
> blocks.
>
> Oliver
>
>

BrianHenderson
Thu Apr 10 15:58:04 CDT 2008

Hi Rafavic
Check out
http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/technical-documentation/esrp-tech-docs.htm
for EMC's guidance. Most of these config's are on the newer models, but I
think there is something out there for CX-700 (12,000 users @ 1IOPS per
user). I actually just noticed a typo as I skimmed the entry for CX-700, but
it's nothing too major.


--
Thanks,
Brian



"Rafavic" wrote:

> Can anyone recommendations on best practices for creating LUNS on their SAN
> specifically for storing their MS Exchange data. I have an EMC CX700 SAN and
> I'm also looking for info on creating partitions/volumes of a RAID set.