preferred setup

[terry712]

about to install 2 backup exchange 2003 servers

what is preferred split of disks - partition wise
i'm using a hp 580 - it has three array controllers and the split is

2* 72 gb drives in a raid 1 on first controller
2 * 72 gb in a raid 1 on the second controller
4 * 72gb in a raid 5 on a second controller

the servers will not be domain controllers and host no owa - just pure backend

 

[PScottC]

That's a pretty potent setup...

I would do this:
Controller 1: 2 Logical Drives, 16GB RAID1 (OS) and remaining space RAID1 (Install files and pagefile)

Controller 2: 1 Logical Drive, 72GB RAID1 (Transaction Logs and SMTP queues)

Controller 3: ??? (Databases) Depends on a lot of factors...

To avoid fragmentation of the DB's on the drives place them on stand alone partitions.

I assume that you're installing Exchange Enterprise? If so, you will have the advantage of splitting your mail into multiple Storage Groups and Databases. You should try to keep individual DB's under 30GB each.

How many users do you want to support on the server? What is the maximum MB size for each user? Are you migrating from an existing Exchange system? How much mail do you currently have?

PSC

Governments and corporations need people like you and me. We are samurai. The keyboard cowboys. And all those other people out there who have no idea what's going on are the cattle. Mooo! --Mr. The Plague, from the movie "Hackers

 

[terry712]

it's coming from 5.5
there are limits just now of 2mb and they all use pst's
about 3000 users
currently store is about 1.5gb spread across 3 servers

it's a temporary stop gap solution for about a year. but on new one i want to get rid of pst's,
with up and coming firewall nightmares - they may end up going strictly web access only

probably 50 %of people will never even login to mail.

it is enterprise edition so will be splitting

 

[PScottC]

Ok... And how big are your public folders?

How much mail do you guess you might have after you import all the .pst files?

PSC

Governments and corporations need people like you and me. We are samurai. The keyboard cowboys. And all those other people out there who have no idea what's going on are the cattle. Mooo! --Mr. The Plague, from the movie "Hackers

 

[terry712]

public folders - could probably fit on a floppy

dont image the pst's are very big but no idea really. no monsters though - imagine combined 30gb