pros/cons to booting NT off XP512

[Rex Pommier]

Hi. We're being tasked to look at booting our NT servers off our XP512 through Brocade 2800's in a fabric environment. We currently mirror boot disks within each NT box that are segregated from data disks. Any feedback good or bad with making this change would be appreciated.

[Vincent Fleming]

It can be done... but...

(that should sound familiar, if you're using NT...)

You can only boot using an Emulex adapter - LP8000, 9002L, or 952L.

You need driver these driver revs:

NT: 4-4.81a9, 4-4.53a5
firmware 3.90a7
BIOS: 1.61a1

If using win2k, driver rev is 5-4.81a9 or 5-4.53a5.

As for *should* you boot from the XP - it's fine, as long as you don't page much - if you page a lot, it can interfere with the I/O performance of the data drives. Paging can consume a lot of cache.

Good luck!

[harry d brown jr]

I'd be for it, but only if you were remotely mirroring your boot disk, or if you had a "partitioned" server where you needed additional external boot devices.

live free or die
harry