asked on

RAID on Exchange

Hi,

We are only a small business but are expanding quickly and have more users on board these days. I currently have a Dell 1600 for my Exchange 2003 server, configured with two 36Gb disks.

Disk 0: OS, Logs
Disk 1: database

Now I want to go about adding some fault tolerance to my disks, so am thinking of purchasing another two 36GB disks and setting up software RAID-1 using Windows.

1)Does anyone have any tips\best practices or word of caution before I look at doing this ?
2) This shouldn't affect performance of the Exchange database should it, as RAID-1 improves Read speed ?

Thanks
Steve

SOLUTION

thernlund

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

SOLUTION

dvrdn

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

SOLUTION

t1clausen

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

SOLUTION

ATIG

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

stevendunne

ASKER

Hi guys,

I finally have the disks after the first set of disks sent out to me were incorrect. The drives are 36GB 80pin 15,000 rpm.

We are only a small business and have 25 users on our Exchange 2003 server. I'm going to configure the disks as follows:

Disk 0: OS, Logs (Mirror to Disk 2)
Disk 1: Database (Mirror to Disk 3)

Do I need to setup the volumes or does this happen automatically when the mirroring starts ?
Do I need to stop any services (information store) when adding the mirror in ?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

t1clausen

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial