RAID Setup/Config

[AreWhy]

I am new the HP Server Game.

I will be putting in a new exchange server in the next few weeks.

I am hosting Exchange 2010, BES Express on the 2008 R2 environment. And will running a virtual server instance of 2003 to host legacy ASP 1.1 applications.

With that, I want to setup a RAID5 for the Data, and RAID1 for the OS.

4 Disks for R5, 2 Disks for R1.

Is there a how to go about creating the logical controllers on the ProLiant?

FYI, G6 ML370.

[Michael A. McKenney]

RAID 1 for OS and paging, RAID 10 or 5 for data. I like RAID 10 because RAID 5 parity writes kill write performance for Exchange and SQL.

I usually start with just RAID 1 for OS. If you have room to create a second RAID 1 array for paging, it helps with performance.

Use a hardware RAID controller in a slot. On-board RAID can bog down. 32 GB of RAM and 128GB paging file. My Exchange server uses 28GB RAM + 28GB paging for store.exe. I am expanding paging to 320GB partition.

[Johan Guldmyr · Accepted solution]

I presume the amount of RAM etc required depends on how much load you will have on the exchange?

There are tools around to help you optimize exchange too. Like a best practice analyzer.

About the RAID config, the ML370 G6 only comes with the P410i. So that's good (if you run RAID5 it is advised to have the BBWC cache, it speeds up RAID5 _a lot_).

To configure the array you can use ACU - array configuration utility (you can run this from the smartstart CD). But there is also the ORCA - if you want to configure it in the POST.

For howto/manual you should see the ACU user guide.

You can find some manuals here: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&contentType=SupportManual&prodTypeId=329290&prodSeriesId=3883890&docIndexId=64179

(it says for the P400, but for the P410i there aren't any useable manuals listed)

[Michael A. McKenney]

40 users on my server. I used the best practice analyzers. It used over 1GB per user. Exchange database is 210GB. Exchange is a bloat monster. Can't wait till migrate it to Exchange 2010. I have to upgrade the SAN for the migration. I am also migrating SQL 2005 to 2008 on a new array.

[Johan Guldmyr]

Whoa, I had no idea it was that resource intensive.

[AreWhy]

I will have 16-18GB of RAM, and 1.2-1.4GB of HardDisk.

Also, running about 45-50 users/mailboxes with about 100GB of data.

[Michael A. McKenney]

I started with 16GB of RAM. It was using the full 28GB paging file. I went to 32Gb of RAM. Still at 28GB paging for store.exe. I am going to up the paging file to 320GB on the SAN. I am planning to get a C7000 blade center with 128GB of RAM.

[AreWhy]

qed