Pro's and Con's for new Windows Server 1

[klunde]

Hi

I'm about to configure two new servers as my domain controllers/exchange server (2003) and I wonder if anyone here has some pro's and con's for the disk config.

My servers are identical (IBM xServies 346) and have 6x74Gb disks. (dual cpu/2gb ram)

Should I configure them with a 2 disk mirrored C: and a raid 5 with hotspare for D: or should I just run Raid 5 with a hotspare as C: for the whole server?

All thoughts are welcome!

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[wdoellefeld]

Between the two I like the raid 1 / raid 5.


FRCP

http://www.frcp.net

 

[bofhrevenge2]

Is it just a file server?

Take a look here some of the sections provide recomendations.

http://www.acnc.com/04_01_00.html

I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out - Bill Hicks

 

[jonbush]

factors to consider:
- data redundancy, what will you do if theres a disk failure ? it's as easy to configure a hardware raid 5, then divide your partitions accordingly, and have a spare disk lying on your shelf just in case....

- data storage, if you mirror the c: drive, you have raid1 cover of your OS, but you lose a whole disk for your array, and having a hot spare is nice and handy, if you can afford to give up the extra capacity, Raid5 will let you lose a disk, provided you replace it soon, you are still fine (and you have backups of the array, of course!)

hope this is useful

J.

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I know i've got it backed up somewhere!
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[bofhrevenge2]

Quite a few off the shelf Dell servers come with RAID5 across all disks so they seem to think thats ok and it probably is for all but the highest loads.

I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out - Bill Hicks

 

[klunde]

Noone has noted any reason for *not* using one single drive here and since Dell delivers off the shelf servers with a raid5 I think that that will be good enough for me as well. Thanks to all for replying.


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