This topic seems to arise every other year or so since early in Exchange 4.0. There is a heated debate on e-mail, with no-one really proving anything. Then it all goes quiet.
At least this time we seem to have two valid approaches for those that want to bother. A book by Curt Aubley and a website at Tricord. I agree with Ed. I would like someone with more time than most of us have, go out and investigate this in a real-world situation. Then report back here, there and everywhere (MEC) to let the rest of us know whether we were right or not in not worrying about it. Cheers, Chris -----Original Message----- From: Ed Crowley [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: 18 June 2002 05:01 To: Exchange Discussions Subject: RE: Allocation Unit (Cluster) Size Question I would recommend that you beat this to death in the lab and then present your findings at the MEC. I would truly be interested (no sarcasm, really) if there were any significant difference. Ed Crowley MCSE+Internet MVP kcCC+I Tech Consultant hp Services Protecting the world from PSTs and Bricked Backups! -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Martin, Jon Sent: Monday, June 17, 2002 4:01 PM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: RE: Allocation Unit (Cluster) Size Question Actually, my boss prefers that I get the most out of the money he spends on hardware and software. When I ask a group of knowledgeable folks a question concerning a little documented but potentially useful way to increase system performance, my boss sees that as a useful expenditure of my time. Trading shots with someone who has indicated she really doesn't know the answer probably would not meet his idea 'useful expenditure of time', but he will probably get over it. -----Original Message----- From: Baker, Jennifer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, June 17, 2002 2:37 PM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: RE: Allocation Unit (Cluster) Size Question If performance is really an issue maybe you should consider different hardware configurations. For instance, RAID 0+1 instead of RAID5, use more disks in your RAID array to "spread" the data access, faster disks, higher end controllers with more R/W cache, etc. To worry about negligible performance (probably < .01%) increases while investing actual productive time probably means you need your boss to assign you more work. Unless, of course the time you spend measuring all the differences in performance while "tweaking" your system with different configurations actually translates to "no extra cost". -----Original Message----- From: Martin, Jon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, June 17, 2002 12:55 PM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: RE: Allocation Unit (Cluster) Size Question Uh, if I understand you correctly, you are not much interested in tweaking a few easy (during system installation, anyways) settings to optimize (at no extra cost) the performance of your system. Jon -----Original Message----- From: Baker, Jennifer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, June 17, 2002 11:32 AM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: RE: Allocation Unit (Cluster) Size Question If I understand you correctly, you are talking about some nit-picky settings that probably will have very little, if any, affect on performance. -----Original Message----- From: Martin, Jon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, June 17, 2002 9:57 AM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: Allocation Unit (Cluster) Size Question Exchange writes to the database in 4k pages. This being the case, does it not make sense to format database drives in 4k Allocation Units (clusters)? And beyond that, since my RAID controller gives me the ability to control the stripe size, shouldn't make this 4k also? Get everyone (database, OS and hardware) in 4k harmony, so to speak. On a similar track regarding transaction logs, if we have valid information as to the average size of messages in our system, would there be a performance boost by configuring the transaction log drive to use clusters and stripes close to (but a little bigger) that the average message size? Or, do I have no clue as to how these things work (always a possibility)? Thanks . . . _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
