Proper drive setup for a domino server

Raid 1 + Raid 5 is just fine.

To have the perfect setup, you could have Raid1 (OS) + Raid5 (data) + Raid1 or Raid0 (transaction log) .  And you should make sure they are all on different controllers, in different PCI channels.  But as long as you don't try to really get the maximum performance out of your box (like trying to support 5.000 users on a box that's only suited for 1.000), your drive setup is good enough.

What OS are you going to run ?  What hardware have you got ?  What's the number of users you are going to support ?

cheers,

Tom

Thanks forthe response Tom,

The server will be running Win2k.  The box has two 2.8Ghz proc's and 2GB of RAM.  The server will be accessable to our customer base which numbers about 1000.  All the customers won't be using the server at the same time.

I have one more question.  Could you (or someone else) tell me the optimial place to install the domino application?  Should I install domino on the mirrored drives along with the O.S. or should I install it on the RAID 5 drives which will also hold the data/logs?  I've read that people install domino with the O.S. and I also read that people install it on the same drives as the data/logs and leave the mirrored O.S. drives alone.  Is there a perferred location to install domino on a server with a RAID 1 + RAID 5 drive setup?

Thanks

From what you dexcribed in your second comment, you could hardly go wrong no matter what you do.  I currently have over a thousand users on a RAID 1+5 setup exactly like yours, using a SINGLE controller but with two channels.  The server never breaks a sweat.  We are NOT using TLogs, but if we were, I would most most likely, bump the OS pair from 10k to 15k and drop the logs there.  There's very little swapping, so once the server boots, the RAID 1 is hardly touched.

If I wanted an IDEAL setup, with budget constraints, I would have the following, each on a separate channel of a redundant controller (today's multichannel controllers are almost as good as separate controllers):

OS
SWAP
BIN
TLOG (if used)
DATA

DATA woudl be RAID 10, the rest RAID 1.  Use 15k drives thrroughout.

I break up OS/SWAP/BIN and use 15k thorughout to minimize start time.

qwaletee,

So is the actual domino program installed on your mirrored drives along with the O.S. or is it installed in a partition on the RAID 5 drives?  Obviously all the data will be on the RAID 5 drives but I'm still not sure where the best place to install the domino program is.

Thx

I generally install the server into the mirrored drives along with the OS (Notes data separate), but it doesn't really matter.

Since you will have max 1000 users, your configuration will run very smoothly; where you install the server program  files will hardly affect performance.  

cheers,

Tom