Exchange HD config question...

[ITJunkie]

Hey all,

Usually when setting up Exchange, I setup the drives in a RAID 5 array and run with a couple of partitions.

I have heard, however, that you may get better performance by setting up a mirror of the OS and separating the Exchange DB and Log files on their own drives.

Anyone have pointers either way?

THKS,

~Bill

 

[dphantom]

I have an Exchange 2003 cluster with the db and log files on our SAN. The cluster servers are mirrored while the SAN is RAID 5 of course. Very fast, very reliable.

When we were smaller, I had a DL 380 with the OS drives mirrored and the Exchange db on a separate controller on RAID 5. That worked pretty well too.

 

[spyordie007]

The *best* mix is probably:
OS RAID-1 (Okay to be safe and slower)
Log files RAID 0+1 (Read and Write speeds are most important here as log file access is frequent and generally non-sequential)
Database files RAID-5 (Stability and read speed are most important; write speed is less important since changes are only commited periodically)

But the problem is that this requires a minimum of 9 drives; if your organization is too small to afford a SAN or DAS option that gives you enough drives to do this than there are plenty of other options that will work okay.

From a backup/restore perspecitive it's a good idea to keep the log files and database on seperate volumes so that if you loose the database volume you can restore it and than replay the logfiles giving you (basically) no loss in data.

 

[dphantom]

Originally posted by: spyordie007
The *best* mix is probably:
OS RAID-1 (Okay to be safe and slower)
Log files RAID 0+1 (Read and Write speeds are most important here as log file access is frequent and generally non-sequential)
Database files RAID-5 (Stability and read speed are most important; write speed is less important since changes are only commited periodically)

But the problem is that this requires a minimum of 9 drives; if your organization is too small to afford a SAN or DAS option that gives you enough drives to do this than there are plenty of other options that will work okay.

From a backup/restore perspecitive it's a good idea to keep the log files and database on seperate volumes so that if you loose the database volume you can restore it and than replay the logfiles giving you (basically) no loss in data.

I'd agree with Spy. Separating log and Db files is a good thing if you can afford it.