curious7
asked on
Can Exchange 2016 DB and logs drive be put on thin provisioned disks
Exchange VMs are hosted on Vmware hosts and the underlying storage is all flash.
Exchange server backups are taken at VMware level (snapshot based) and exchange DB level.
We are considering putting exchange 2016 DB and log drives on thin provisioned disks.
Is there any recommendation from Microsoft in regards to thin provisioning disks at Vmware level and exchange LUNs at storage array level?
And are there any negative effects of doing this?
Exchange server backups are taken at VMware level (snapshot based) and exchange DB level.
We are considering putting exchange 2016 DB and log drives on thin provisioned disks.
Is there any recommendation from Microsoft in regards to thin provisioning disks at Vmware level and exchange LUNs at storage array level?
And are there any negative effects of doing this?
kevinhsieh
It is fine, especially on all flash because there is no performance difference anyway between thick and thin provisioned disks.
Place Exchange Database and Logs on Thick Volumes
Never use thin provisioned disks in Exchange. When a thin provisioned volume is added to a server, the server operating system has no insight into the storage array. Why does this matter? It matters because the storage array is only allocating what is being used. As Exchange data is processed, the storage has to zero-out the block and reserve it first before the transaction can be written. This is a performance bottleneck for Exchange, especially in large environments. No high I/O applications should ever use thin provisioning. Always be specific about your storage needs if another team handles your storage requests. If you don’t have access to your storage array, request a screen-shot from them when they provision storage for you. Always validate Exchange builds with a catalog of validation documents.
For a complete details explanation please refer one of our experts update in below link:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/18410/Most-Common-Mistakes-made-by-Exchange-Administrators-Engineers-when-deploying-Exchange-Mailbox-Servers.html
Never use thin provisioned disks in Exchange. When a thin provisioned volume is added to a server, the server operating system has no insight into the storage array. Why does this matter? It matters because the storage array is only allocating what is being used. As Exchange data is processed, the storage has to zero-out the block and reserve it first before the transaction can be written. This is a performance bottleneck for Exchange, especially in large environments. No high I/O applications should ever use thin provisioning. Always be specific about your storage needs if another team handles your storage requests. If you don’t have access to your storage array, request a screen-shot from them when they provision storage for you. Always validate Exchange builds with a catalog of validation documents.
For a complete details explanation please refer one of our experts update in below link:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/18410/Most-Common-Mistakes-made-by-Exchange-Administrators-Engineers-when-deploying-Exchange-Mailbox-Servers.html
The article referenced by Saif Shaikh is 5 years old. It was written with the understanding of how arrays operated about 10 years ago. Five years ago, maybe you had a hybrid storage array. Now, OP is talking about Exchange on all flash storage...which was be unthinkable 5 years ago.
We don't know if the storage is local, low end NAS or a high end array. Even at the low end, the storage is way faster than what would have been generally available 5 years ago.
We don't know if the storage is local, low end NAS or a high end array. Even at the low end, the storage is way faster than what would have been generally available 5 years ago.
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