Do i want to create a new store or storage group?

[PaulGillespie]

Hi Guys,
I woulds like to create a new mail store so i can seperate out job functions and also apply different mailbox limits to each store. I've been reading a microsoft how to and i know how to do this. My query is, do i want to create a second mail store in the First Storage Group or do i want to create a second storage group and create the new mail store under there. I beleive the only differences are that a second storage group has it's own transaction logs. Is there anything else? what route should i take? The company is only 100 mailboxes big but growing, there is a large demand on the exchange server (as always!) so i'd like to split the organisation into 2 for DR and managabilty reasons.

Thanks for any advice given.

paul

 

[58sniper]

If you've got Exchange standard edition, you're stuck with using a single storage group.

If you have enterprise edition, you can add another SG and a mailbox store inside of it.

Pat Richard
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Contributing author The Complete Reference: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007

 

[ntinlin]

To add to 58sniper's comments the Microsoft recommendation for Enterprise 2003 is always to spread databases out across storage groups if possible rather than filling one SG with stores then adding another SG.

It's documented on MSExchangeTeam.com somewhere.
Reasons as you have mentioned is that you then get multiple sets of transaction logs which helps with backups / restores etc. And obviously if you spread the sets of logs across different spindle it can help with throughput.

If I recall correctly for XC 2K it was the opposite because adding a storage group introduced a memory penalty which XC 2003 doesn't have as badly.

Neill

 

[PaulGillespie]

Thanks very much guys, i have enterprise so i'll create a new storage group and then a new mail store under there.

Cheers!

Paul

 

[Zelandakh]

In 2000 you create stores in the same storage group due to memory configs in the Exchange app.

In 2003 you create storage groups until you have 4 storage groups and have a single store in each until you have 4 sep stores then go back to the first up to your maximum. The memory problem had been addressed.

 

[zbnet]

Here's a link to the MS article mentioned above:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/890699

 

[PaulGillespie]

Thanks guys. That link was useful too, i hadn't seen that one.

Cheers!