ASP.NET I/O Architecture

[Ayman Altounji]

sorry if this is a double post...
looking for comments on a couple of I/O architecture options being discussed with developers.

think we're ok on dl-380 w/2x1.4ghz-p4s and 4gb ram

OS
Option 1 - OS, temp (osTEMP & aspTEMP), and pagefile on
3x18gb 15krpm disks on internal single channel controller

Option 2 - OS, temp, & pagefile on primary partition of 6x36gb 10k rpm raid 5 array on internal 4 channel controller

Applications

Option 1 - asp.net & biztalk on 10x18gb 15k rpm raid 5 array on external 2-channel controller

Option 2 - apps on secondary partition of above 6x36gb 10k rpm raid 5 array

Discussion
Option 1 seems to follow a "classic" I/O architecture for application and db servers and would be marginally more expensive to procure but rather inexpensive to performance tune and upgrade as necessary.

Option 2 coupling of os and apps on a single port of the controller seems unusual and difficult to troubleshoot and isolate potential problems. Any initial savings will be lost and then some through expensive performance monitoring and detection. finally, reflects a lack of understaning of principles of robust i/o architecture - controllers and disks (server based apps w/ large working sets and heavy use of caching running on isolated controller and 10 disks should perform close to 50% faster due to higher spindle count alone). Storage should generally be configured based on performance metrics(application servers) rather than space usage(file servers).

comments?

thanks, tom