How would you arrage your drives?

brad-

We're getting new hardware for exchange 2007 and I'm about to order it from HP. I was thinking about going with a 16 HD configuration of 146GB @15k rpm.

If you were to configure these for exchange, how would you do it?

I'm thinking:

OS - 2 HD's RAID 1
Logs - 2 HD's RAID 1
Data - 12 HD's RAID 5

Critiques welcome.

blargoe

For best performance I'd do RAID 1+0 for the data drives, but you'll only have the usable space of 6 of those 12 drives. If you really will need all the storage space that 12x146GB of drives can offer, and still be redundant, then RAID 5 is going to be your best option.

You should also leave at least one disk available as a hot spare.

brad-

blargoe wrote: »

You should also leave at least one disk available as a hot spare.

Good thinking. I just wont allocate it when I run the HP setup disk, i'll label it, and just swap it out on the fly if one dies. I honestly would not have done that if you didnt say so, i'm ashamed to admit.

royal

There's a lot that goes into storage From an IOPs perspective, either RAID 5 or RAID 10 may suffice. It depends on the IOPS requirements and capacity requirements and scalability you require. I would look into the following two tools to help.

HP's Exchange 2007 Sizing Tool:
HP Sizing Tool for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007

Microsoft's Exchange Storage Calculator:
You Had Me At EHLO... : Exchange 2007 Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator

hypnotoad

Yeah, the IOPS calculations are where its at. It basically depends on the number of users, how much they use, and what they store. Also, its good to have a set of disks for LCR (local continuous replication) if you want to go that route.

Most of the exchange books Ive read have at a section dedicated to mailbox stores and how they should be arranged with the different databases and information stores.

Keep in mind that you should have some tool to backup all that exchange data...a tool that is exchange aware and will clear the transaction logs. And exchange 2010 will be out someday so maybe that will influence a decision.

HeroPsycho

If you're thinking storage space optimization of RAID5, I'd recommend going RAID6 if available, or RAID5 with a hotspare. One of the benefits of RAID10 besides better I/O is you severely cripple your I/O if one drive dies.

royal

heropsycho wrote: »

if you're thinking storage space optimization of raid5, i'd recommend going raid6 if available, or raid5 with a hotspare. One of the benefits of raid10 over raid 5 besides better i/o is you don't severely cripple your i/o if one drive dies.

fixed