Best practises for Storage groups

[Taffyboyo]

Hi All,

I'm moving to Exchange 2000 and wondered whats the best practice when it comes to storage groups. I know I can have a maximum of 4, each containing 5 databases, but am I best filling fewer storage groups to their maximum before using another group?? or am i best keeping storage groups containing less than 5 databases?

Also should I put the Virtual SMTP in its own group or should I put it in with other databases?

Regards

Mark

 

[BWilson77080]

You are correct for the database/storage group amounts for exchange 2000 enterprise server, but not regular exchange, so it depends on the version your using.

if you have users that will need storage limits, yet some users won't, you should put the users in seperate storage groups.
the administrative groups are for seperating/delegating administration
the less mailbox stores, etc., the better.
always ebst practice to keep transaction logs on a seperaet disk (mirrored RAID1 if possible) and keep each database on a seperate disk if possible (RAID 5 array if possible). this is why the fewer the better.
Only reason for additional storage groups is logging and such, like if your going to host a newsgroup with NNTP and you dont want the transaction logs to take alot of space, then youd make a seperate storage group for it and enable circular logging. It all boils down to policies you want in place really. You shouldnt have to worry too much about the SMTP Virtual server, it should take care of itself after you provide the base info for it.

hopes this helps you

 

[Taffyboyo]

We are building our email system on a Windows 2000 2 node cluster Active/Passive mode, so yes it is Exchange 2000 Enterprise server. I'm sure I read somewhere some best practises on the population of storage groups but can't remember if it said it was best to fill out storage groups to their maximum of 5 databases or keep them under their maximum. I know it is important to consider the storage groups and databases for time it takes for back up and restore.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Regards

Mark