Good afternoon -

We will soon be implementing an Exchange 2003 Std. server. We have about
120 users. I've read quite a bit on "best practices". I'm not willing to
"cheap out", but my bosses don't want to break the bank either. The CPU,
RAM, NIC, etc. are not my concern. My concern is hard disk config.
Understanding that we're not a huge org, I'm kind of undecided. Should I
build with OS and Exchange on two seperate RAID sets, or Exchange logs on one
set and everything else on another one?? Or something else you might
recommend??

Thoughts???

Thank you in advance!

Cheers,

Brian

Re: Hardware / Disk Advice.... by John

John
Wed Jul 12 17:36:37 CDT 2006

I would recommend,

OS RAID1
Logs RAID1
Databases RAID1 or RAID5 ( Suggest RAID 5 since you get more HD Space with
multiple drives)

--
John Oliver, Jr
MCSE, MCT, CCNA
Exchange MVP 2006
Microsoft Certified Partner

"Brian" <Brian@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:DBCC438B-B007-49FB-B9EC-3DE6224FAD5C@microsoft.com...
> Good afternoon -
>
> We will soon be implementing an Exchange 2003 Std. server. We have about
> 120 users. I've read quite a bit on "best practices". I'm not willing to
> "cheap out", but my bosses don't want to break the bank either. The CPU,
> RAM, NIC, etc. are not my concern. My concern is hard disk config.
> Understanding that we're not a huge org, I'm kind of undecided. Should I
> build with OS and Exchange on two seperate RAID sets, or Exchange logs on
> one
> set and everything else on another one?? Or something else you might
> recommend??
>
> Thoughts???
>
> Thank you in advance!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Brian



Re: Hardware / Disk Advice.... by Ed

Ed
Wed Jul 12 19:26:50 CDT 2006

For 120 users you would probably be safe putting the OS and transaction logs
on the same drive, but I would recommend that you partition 10 GB and use it
just for the logs. If you want to be safe regarding performance, devote a
single RAID-1 array solely to the transaction logs.

RAID-5 with a top-quality hardware controller (like HP's) offers better
performance than RAID-1 because data can be striped across more drives.
However, that shouldn't be too much of a concern for 120 users.
--
Ed Crowley
MVP - Exchange
"Protecting the world from PSTs and brick backups!"

"John Oliver, Jr. [MVP]" <jcoliverjr@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:OQUKoOgpGHA.2292@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>I would recommend,
>
> OS RAID1
> Logs RAID1
> Databases RAID1 or RAID5 ( Suggest RAID 5 since you get more HD Space with
> multiple drives)
>
> --
> John Oliver, Jr
> MCSE, MCT, CCNA
> Exchange MVP 2006
> Microsoft Certified Partner
>
> "Brian" <Brian@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:DBCC438B-B007-49FB-B9EC-3DE6224FAD5C@microsoft.com...
>> Good afternoon -
>>
>> We will soon be implementing an Exchange 2003 Std. server. We have about
>> 120 users. I've read quite a bit on "best practices". I'm not willing
>> to
>> "cheap out", but my bosses don't want to break the bank either. The CPU,
>> RAM, NIC, etc. are not my concern. My concern is hard disk config.
>> Understanding that we're not a huge org, I'm kind of undecided. Should I
>> build with OS and Exchange on two seperate RAID sets, or Exchange logs on
>> one
>> set and everything else on another one?? Or something else you might
>> recommend??
>>
>> Thoughts???
>>
>> Thank you in advance!
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Brian
>
>



Re: Hardware / Disk Advice.... by Brian

Brian
Thu Jul 13 08:19:01 CDT 2006

Thank you both!!

"Ed Crowley [MVP]" wrote:

> For 120 users you would probably be safe putting the OS and transaction logs
> on the same drive, but I would recommend that you partition 10 GB and use it
> just for the logs. If you want to be safe regarding performance, devote a
> single RAID-1 array solely to the transaction logs.
>
> RAID-5 with a top-quality hardware controller (like HP's) offers better
> performance than RAID-1 because data can be striped across more drives.
> However, that shouldn't be too much of a concern for 120 users.
> --
> Ed Crowley
> MVP - Exchange
> "Protecting the world from PSTs and brick backups!"
>
> "John Oliver, Jr. [MVP]" <jcoliverjr@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:OQUKoOgpGHA.2292@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> >I would recommend,
> >
> > OS RAID1
> > Logs RAID1
> > Databases RAID1 or RAID5 ( Suggest RAID 5 since you get more HD Space with
> > multiple drives)
> >
> > --
> > John Oliver, Jr
> > MCSE, MCT, CCNA
> > Exchange MVP 2006
> > Microsoft Certified Partner
> >
> > "Brian" <Brian@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:DBCC438B-B007-49FB-B9EC-3DE6224FAD5C@microsoft.com...
> >> Good afternoon -
> >>
> >> We will soon be implementing an Exchange 2003 Std. server. We have about
> >> 120 users. I've read quite a bit on "best practices". I'm not willing
> >> to
> >> "cheap out", but my bosses don't want to break the bank either. The CPU,
> >> RAM, NIC, etc. are not my concern. My concern is hard disk config.
> >> Understanding that we're not a huge org, I'm kind of undecided. Should I
> >> build with OS and Exchange on two seperate RAID sets, or Exchange logs on
> >> one
> >> set and everything else on another one?? Or something else you might
> >> recommend??
> >>
> >> Thoughts???
> >>
> >> Thank you in advance!
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >>
> >> Brian
> >
> >
>
>
>

Re: Hardware / Disk Advice.... by John

John
Thu Jul 13 13:20:04 CDT 2006

RAID 0+1 or 10 can both stripe across multiple drives. RAID 5 does not
provide the best tradeoff between performance and availability. I suggest
you read "optimizing storage for exchange server 2003", the latest version
dated 19 June, page 12 in the section titled "Best Practices Common to
Multiple Architectures" for the latest guidance.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/library/optimizestorage.mspx



"Ed Crowley [MVP]" <curspice@mvpsnospam.org> wrote in message
news:%23RKiJMhpGHA.4932@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> For 120 users you would probably be safe putting the OS and transaction
> logs on the same drive, but I would recommend that you partition 10 GB and
> use it just for the logs. If you want to be safe regarding performance,
> devote a single RAID-1 array solely to the transaction logs.
>
> RAID-5 with a top-quality hardware controller (like HP's) offers better
> performance than RAID-1 because data can be striped across more drives.
> However, that shouldn't be too much of a concern for 120 users.
> --
> Ed Crowley
> MVP - Exchange
> "Protecting the world from PSTs and brick backups!"
>
> "John Oliver, Jr. [MVP]" <jcoliverjr@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:OQUKoOgpGHA.2292@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>>I would recommend,
>>
>> OS RAID1
>> Logs RAID1
>> Databases RAID1 or RAID5 ( Suggest RAID 5 since you get more HD Space
>> with multiple drives)
>>
>> --
>> John Oliver, Jr
>> MCSE, MCT, CCNA
>> Exchange MVP 2006
>> Microsoft Certified Partner
>>
>> "Brian" <Brian@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:DBCC438B-B007-49FB-B9EC-3DE6224FAD5C@microsoft.com...
>>> Good afternoon -
>>>
>>> We will soon be implementing an Exchange 2003 Std. server. We have
>>> about
>>> 120 users. I've read quite a bit on "best practices". I'm not willing
>>> to
>>> "cheap out", but my bosses don't want to break the bank either. The
>>> CPU,
>>> RAM, NIC, etc. are not my concern. My concern is hard disk config.
>>> Understanding that we're not a huge org, I'm kind of undecided. Should
>>> I
>>> build with OS and Exchange on two seperate RAID sets, or Exchange logs
>>> on one
>>> set and everything else on another one?? Or something else you might
>>> recommend??
>>>
>>> Thoughts???
>>>
>>> Thank you in advance!
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Brian
>>
>>
>
>