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1) Exchange Hard Drive Config.
a) Many Drives, prefereably Raid 0+1. At least one miror pair per 250 users
for database.
b) Seperate data that is accessed sequentially (logs) from random access
data (data bases)
c) Use one of the manufactueres tools. I know the HP one (see below) will
consider both size and I/O.
2) Troubleshoot
a) Look at the I/O queue length. I seem to remeber being told that 6 was a
good benchmark, but I may be wrong. If you get large I/O queue length,
especially on the log files, you are in trouble.
b) Take a look at the HP storage calculator. I know its only HP storage,
but will give you an idea if your config is reasonable:-
-----Original Message-----
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of HBooGz
Sent: Thu 18/05/2006 23:55
To:
[email protected]
Cc:
Subject: Re:
[ActiveDir] [OT] RAID 5 Best Practice
Sorry to bounce off
topic.
But what would you recommend for Exchange hard drive config
?
even better where i can look for information on how to troubleshoot (
what to look for ) the diisk subsystem on an exchange box.
Thanks.
On 5/18/06, joe
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Classic
Exchange type design. ;o)
For AD, I pretty generally recommend people
do a single 0Ư/10[1] first and
then 5 second and go with either because
usually they don't have enough
slots for the disk internally to break it
all up into a bunch of 1's and I
prefer the disk internal for AD and you
want as many spindles in the set as
possible.
The good thing is
that 0Ư will stand up to the IO (mostly DIT read) load
that you get out
of even really busy DCs. I may change my thoughts after I
start seeing
big x64 machines cruising along, haven't seen any yet in
customer sites.
The log load on DCs is usually miniscule except in cases I
have heard of
~Eric testing some funky stuff in EEC and actually getting log
write ops
into triple digits. Ditto for OS too unless you are doing a bunch
of
other stuff on the DC.
For file sharing, I would consider 0Ư but 5
would be more likely since you
probably want/need the space more than the
speed. File sharing doesn't
really beat the disks up relative to a busy
DC even in large multi-thousand
user file servers I have seen. It is why
most normal server admins really
have no clue what to look for in terms
of IO load on servers but any
Exchange Admin worth anything is looking
at that right away in a problem
situation and able to quote IOPS stats
off the top of their head and know
what they can get from the underlying
disk subsystem. Exchange disk configs
are critical.
Anyway, I
don't have a problem with 5 for file servers. There is definitely
a hit
on rebuild but you have to ask yourself how often you expect that
and
whether or not it is acceptable that you take a hit when you are in
that
mode. I consider the fault tolerance for emergencies, not something
I have
to deal with weekly. If there are other benefits I want from 5
(say reduced
cost for the space) and having slower rebuild is acceptable
then that is
perfectly fine. If you need something that is entirely
transparent then you
look at other solutions and you start spending more
money.
As for logically partitioning the underlying disk. Not
sure what kind of
security gains you are expecting there. Nothing I can
think of off the top
of my head. No perf gain except for the possible
perf gains in doing a
volume chkdsk or backup/restore of individual
volumes maybe. The
partitioning for logical separate of binaries in data
can be a good thing.
Kind of nice to know that you absolutely need the D
drive back but the C
could be a complete fresh
rebuild.
joe
[1] Assuming they wouldn't
consider a straight stripe set, recall DCs are
all duplicates and a big
stripe set is going to be the fastest...
--
O'Reilly
Active Directory Third Edition -
http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
] On Behalf Of Carlos Magalhaes
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 2:02
PM
To: [email protected]
Subject:
Re: [ActiveDir] [OT] RAID 5 Best Practice
I know this is not exactly
the RAID 5 Best practices but this is how I
usually setup and recommend
the customers to setup their disks (if they can
afford the
hardware)
RAID1 for the OS
RAID1 for the logs
RAID0Ư for the
database
Carlos
Brian Desmond wrote:
>
> I always
do 12GB for C and the rest for D for 'Data'. I can format C
> and not
worry about the Data.
>
> *Thanks,**
> *Brian Desmond**
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
*c - 312.731.3132*
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
>
> *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
] *On Behalf Of *Timothy
> Foster
> *Sent:* Thursday, May
18, 2006 1:29 PM
> *To:* [email protected]
>
*Subject:* RE: [ActiveDir] [OT] RAID 5 Best Practice
>
>
Thanks, Brian. That makes sense.
>
> So if I have a 4 disk array
on a single backplane, and given that I
> want the benefits of RAID 5,
is there any argument for configuring
> more than one partition on the
array? I realize that this is
> potentially too much of an open-ended
question, but I'm curious :-).
> The basic premise is that this server
would be a workhorse domain
> member/file server. Would one partition
- C: - combined with carefully
> configured share and NTFS
permissions provide adequate security? Or is
> it better to put the OS
on C: and the shares on D: ? Or does the
> benefit of partitions lie
somewhere else - for example, if I wanted to
> wipe C: and reinstall
the OS without touching D: ? (I'm not sure if I
> like this idea, but
as I mentioned, I'm curious...).
>
> Thanks,
>
>
Tim
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
>
> *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
] *On Behalf Of *Brian
> Desmond
> *Sent:* Thursday, May 18,
2006 12:53 PM
> *To:* [email protected]
>
*Subject:* RE: [ActiveDir] [OT] RAID 5 Best Practice
>
>
Tim-
>
> It doesn't really matter. The RAID controller has no
idea about the
> partition table. It just presents a LUN to the OS and
the OS writes to it.
>
> *Thanks,**
> *Brian Desmond**
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
*c - 312.731.3132*
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
>
> *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
] *On Behalf Of *Timothy
> Foster
> *Sent:* Thursday, May
18, 2006 12:19 PM
> *To:* [email protected]
>
*Subject:* [ActiveDir] [OT] RAID 5 Best Practice
>
> Using a
RAID controller's configuration utility I can build and
> initialize a
RAID 5 container. When installing the OS, I can, if I
> choose, create
a partition. Is this a good or bad idea? In other
> words, if I
partition RAID 5 container during the OS install will it
> make any
difference if I ever need to replace a drive and rebuild the
> array?
Will the partition table be recognized during the rebuild?
>
>
Thanks for your input.
>
> Tim
>
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HBooGz:\>
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