Hi,I wanted to know what is the best way to configure the drives in a HP server for an Exchange installI have a server with 12 drives. is it best to configure 4 disks in a raid 10 set and use HP to create partitions (not windows) for the OS, page file and application filesThen another raid 10 set and partition for all the different log files and then a raid 5 set for the databases or should i go with 8 seperate raid 1 configurations and partition each of them up for the os and logs, and then raid 5 the database files Although I would prefer raid 10 for the databases, disk cost prevents this.hope this makes sense

RAID 10 gives you most performance, but depending on your size it may be an overkill.How many mailboxes and how is the user profile for your users mail behavior?lasse at humandata dot se, http://anewmessagehasarrived.blogspot.com

Hi,Yes I agree with Lasse, RAID 10 is preferable over RAID 5 but it depends on what is your estimated size of Exchange databases and based on that you can decide suitable for you.You can take a look at below article to calculate rough database size and to get more idea about things to keep in mind while calculating it. You can also check Mailbox Role Storage Calculator at MSExchangeTeam.com at later stage.Mailbox Server Storage Designhttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb738147.aspxReference:Planning Storage Configurationshttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124518.aspxAmit Tank | MVP - Exchange | MCITP:EMA MCSA:M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

In order to achieve fast response times for clients and large mailbox per user, primary choices are RAID 10 or RAID 5 And yes, RAID 10 is much more preferred. With RAID 10, an entire storage enclosure can fail without affecting the availability of the storage subsystem More comparison between RAID 10 and RAID 5 is in the Performance section on the Page 24 of Microsoft IT Showcase

I think I didn't word my question quite correctly. I understand the performance benefits of raid 10 to raid 5. My question was more of the benefit of raid 10 over raid 1i.e. I have 4 drives for the log files so would i be better creating one raid 10 set and using hp to partition it into several drives and store the logs on the relevant partitions or shold I create two seperate raid 1 arrays and put the log files on there.I think raid 10 would be better as there are more disks in the raid set and as I understand it that means more disk can respond. but would like other peoples views on this

Per my knowledge for the scenario you described, when comparing with RAID 1, RAID 10 provides same capacity, fault-tolerance, read rate. Furthermore, it also offer improved write rate which RAID 1 doesnt have However, RAID 10s complexity may make some difficulties for using & issue fixing in the future. If thats not a problem to you, then, I think that RAID 10 is a good choice Nested RAID levels

Hi,Yes, I agree with James.- Basically RAID 0 is striped set of HDDs, which just share the load between different disks for better read/write performance and gives same disk capacity as normal HDDs. But nofault tolerance.- While RAID 1 is mirrored set of HDDs, which just keep the mirror of data on different disks forfault toleranceand gives half of disk capacity of total HDDs. But no difference in performance.Check out below figure for RAID-10, if you remove RAID-0 from the top and just use RAID-1 then you are removing performance optimizer without gaining anything... :)Reference:http://blogs.msdn.com/hmlee/archive/2006/03/01/raid-nas-and-iscsi-on-wikipedia.aspx RAID 0 /-----------------------------------\ | | | RAID 1 RAID 1 RAID 1 /--------\ /--------\ /--------\ | | | | | | 120 GB 120 GB 120 GB 120 GB 120 GB 120 GB A1 A1 A2 A2 A3 A3 A4 A4 A5 A5 A6 A6 B1 B1 B2 B2 B3 B3 B4 B4 B5 B5 B6 B6Amit Tank | MVP - Exchange | MCITP:EMA MCSA:M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

great that makes sense. are there any issues about using HP to partition a raid 10 set and sharing log and app files. e.g. if I have 4 disks for the os, page,apps and log files, would it be best to use HP ACU to create a single array set for them and 4 different logical drives? thanks

This would work, but you will end up with database and transaction log information on the same physical drive.I would create separate logical volymes with ACU for each workload generated by server. Each physical disk should not be member of more than one logical volume (and workload). This will get you the most separatiion of workload and data information on physical disks. lasse at humandata dot se, http://anewmessagehasarrived.blogspot.com