Single Partition or multiple ?

EmpoweredBizTech

I would love an opinion from everyone here. Are we fans of a single partition or multiple partition ? I ask this because I have now multiple times with different clients with different size network and different sized OS partitions using Win2k3 Server and 2k3 SBS find that the OS partition constantly is filling up. I have essentially stopped doing a separate partition except in the case where I can have it on separate spindles or array eg: Raid 1 for OS and Raid 1 or 5 for data. Any thoughts, comments or death threats if this topic angers you is welcomed

blargoe

Depends.

I'm going to always put any data on a separate partition. Unless it's a small workgroup server for a few people, I'm also going to follow the Raid1 volume for OS and Raid 5 volume for Data.

For stuff like IIS, I'm going to put the directory root on a separate partition to prevent a directory traversal attack to give access to the system drive ( I know that's a reach but it makes me feel a teeny bit better )

If it's just some kind of utility server with a simple app that doesn't write to the disk that much, just one partition.

Claymoore

Wow, I seem to be stalking blargoe and the boards today...

I definitely want separate partitions - and prefer separate disks - but I let the requirements of the application determine the final design.

My reasons for separate partitions go way back to the days of wooden machines and iron men when systems such as Novell ruled the Earth. Novell 4.? (4.11?) added the ability to move the print queue off the sysvol. That doesn't seem like a big deal unless you ever had a print queue crap itself and spool endlessly until it filled up the sysvol and abended the server. My company supported a product that briefly had a bug in a service pack that accidentally created a 1 Gb file. In the days of 5Gb HDs, that will crash a server in a hurry. The engineer who trained me had been burned by crazy print queues before so he taught me to keep data out of the sysvol whenever possible. Even though the bug would fill up the data volume and stop the application, we were still able to log in to the servers and fix it.

brad-

no internal drives. no raid. just a 32mb usb jump drive for all my needs.