Re: Exchange Partitions? by Hank
Hank
Tue Mar 14 02:54:13 CST 2006
"Mark Arnold [MVP]" <mark@mvps.org> wrote in message
news:00pc12hct2ufj0djt96bhdungl1q52knb7@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 19:10:27 -0800, Help
> <Help@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
>>We are currently migrating from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003.
>>Our Exchange 5.5 servers had 2 partitions. One for system files and the
>>second for Exchange files by the look of it.
>>
>>Our new Exchange Servers have 4 x 36GB drives for our major sites and 2 x
>>36
>>GB drives for our smaller sites.
>>
>>Our company has approx 8000 mailboxes in total, across around 10 sites.
>>How should these be configured for the best performance?
>
> You don't have enough disks to safely install Exchange on your smaller
> sites. I'm not going to proffer any more than that.
>
> On your larger sites you can carve the partitions up how you like.
> However, if it's disk advice then make two RAID1 pairs. One pair for
> the OS, Exchange and logs. The other pair for the Exchange databases.
>
> You're now thinking that you won't have enough disk space on the
> larger sites; you're correct. Your physical disks are too small. Why
> do you think you need Exchange servers at your smaller sites? Why
> can't you have a large server at one or possibly even two locations
> and then have the clients run RPC over HTTPS to them?
>
> I think you need a bit of a rethink.
I agree 100%. I also wonder how many RAID channels he has. I'd say that two
are almost mandatory. Having both RAID arrays on the same channel will be a
performance hit (especially with 8000 mailboxes). I'd also recommend 2 more
drives for the data store array so that he could use RAID 10...
Also, I would seriously recommend re-evaluating the configurations. We have
no information on how many users, transactions or mailbox sizes. With 8000
mailboxes, there could be some serious problems with minimal configurations
like the ones described.
--
Regards,
Hank Arnold