Small Business Server 2003 Premium

[dphoneguy24]

I am getting ready to install a new SBS platform and need some expert advice. Is there a good book out there or info on the web when it comes to planning partitions and drive setups that would be best for SBS? I would like to use a RAID-5 setup but I get a little confused on the partition for the OS. Should the OS be installed on a separate drive and the RAID-5 be setup and partitioned for all data? Fairly new to the server world and I would greatly appreciate any guidance or direction.

Thank you in advance,
Dphoneguy24

 

[58sniper]

Well, you didn't mention the capicity of the server, as far as how many drives it will hold, etc.

If you're stuck with one RAID 5 array, make the OS partition 16GB, and install all of the options on what's left of the array (Exchange, faxing, clientapps, user folders, etc).

I've got probably 200 SBS boxes deployed that way.

If you can support more drives, I'd mirror two drives for the OS, two for Exchange's transaction logs, RAID 5 for Exchange database, and RAID 5 for everything else.

Pat Richard, MCSE(2) MCSA:Messaging, CNA(2)

 

[markdmac]

I agree with all that Pat said, however would add one thing to it. Depending on the size of your drives, if you only have room in the server for 3 drives for the RAID array, and if the drives are really large, I would suggest going above that 16GB. Service packs, hotfixes etc, all seem to make the disk space creep up rather quickly. IF you can spare the space then I would go with 24GB.

The amount of Physical memory plays into this as well since you would want to have a paging file that is at least 1.5 times your physical memory.

If you have SBS Standard you probably have 1GB of RAM and would want a paging file around 1.5-2GB. If you have Premium, then I would hope you have around 2GB of RAM and would then want a paging file of around 4GB to handle the extra SQL & ISA loads.



I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

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