Redistributing HDD between servers + new SSD

[MarcLeFou]

Hi

I'm upgrading a few servers at our office (family business with 17 employees) and I'd like some opinions on the best use of our HDD and SSD.

Three servers are in play here :

1) Our file and ordering application server (windows 2k3 - 3 users work in TS + 1 local user)

2) Our mailserver (CentOS 5.5 with Zimbra mailserver and funambol - supports 17 users)

3) Offsite backup server (which also happens to be my personal desktop system as the offsite is at my home)

Currently, we have a single Velociraptor HDD for our file and application server, dual IDE HDD in software Raid 1 for our mailserver (6-7 years old) and my computer has an internal 250 GB SATA HDD for my personal instal and the backups are done on a 160 GB SATA HDD that I housed in a USB casing for ease of transport (I actually cloned the system on the USB HDD using clonezilla and I update the files through a mix of livesync for documents and Deltacopy (windows implementation of rsync) for our application database).

I'm going to be upgrading all 3 of our servers but I'll reuse most of the good parts such as the HDD's.

Here's all of the available HDD's we now have :

2 Kingston SSD 30 GB
2 Seagate SATA 160 GB HDD
1 Velociraptor 32 GB HDD
2 6-7 years old IDE HDD from WD
1 250 GB SATA HDD (currently in my home system)
1 160 GB SATA HDD (currently our backup drive)

Here's what I had planned :

The 2 SSD going in a hardware Raid 1 config for our Application and Documents Server
+ 1 IDE HDD for documents
The 2 Seagate HDD going in hardware Raid 1 config for our mailserver
+ 1 IDE HDD for keeping local backups of the mailstore before I rsync that to our offsite server on a weekly basis.
Velociraptor HDD as the "Windows" drive for my local system
+250 GB SATA HDD currently in my system stays there as my DATA & APPS drive
+160 GB SATA HDD currently in the USB case for backups stays there.

However, I'm questionning a few things :

1) Probably not wise to put all of our documents on an old drive
2) Is going Raid 1 with a SSD really useful ? The servers are all on surge protectors and have Antec Power Supplies so a power surge is highly unlikely and mechanical failure really is non-existant with SSD's.
3) If Raid-1 isn't a good ideam should a SSD go into my system instead and either the velociraptor or another drive go as the the documents HDD on the Apps & Documents server? The speed of the document HDD really is of little concern but its reliability is.
3) If I decide to have a HDD and a SSD in the same system, should the OS go on the SSD or should the apps ? I'd rather have responsive apps than a quick system but having the OS there might still be more beneficial than having the apps there ...

Any input ?

PS : I know our file and apps server isn't TRIM aware (2k3) which is why I went with the Kingston SSD as Anand's benchmark showed very little degradation with that drive over time.

 

[RebateMonger]

You are pushing the lifetime of those WD IDE drives. I suggest not using them. Many of my six-year-old Seagates are now developing bad sectors.

 

[pjkenned]

Seconding what RebateMonger posted. How old are the other drives? You start hitting the upward slope of the hard drive failure bathtub curve in year 3.

 

[jimhsu]

1. Yes, get rid of the old drives. Get new drives, and then do backups (not RAID) to spare drives. Preferably at least two copies - one onsite (daily), one offsite (weekly) or whatever floats your boat. RAID is an option, but you still need backups.
2. I would simply backup to cheaper storage from the SSD. Unless you have specific throughput/IO targets to hit (i.e transaction/seconds), I don't recommend any RAID solution, even RAID 1.
3. No comment.
4. The general desktop guideline is OS and commonly used apps on the SSD. For servers, it depends what apps you want to accelerate - for example, if the app server is IO bound (you can check this by noting the average queue length), it may be better to install the OS on disk and the apps on the SSD. If it is memory or CPU bound, then maybe not.

 

[MarcLeFou]

Thanks for the input.

The velociraptor is about 5 years old so it probably wouldn't be suitable for files then. I'd probably need to purchase an extra drive for files (or not do a raid-1 for our mailserver). As for the WD IDE HDD, would using them as extra SWAP be an intelligent solution ? If they fail in that capacity, there's no loss of data.

I have some stuff to think about regarding Raid however.

Thanks for the input so far.