Re: Review of new design - Please
- From: "rdw24" <rdw24@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 12:41:16 -0700
Al,
Thank you very much for your response. This does answer the questions I was
having regarding the physical disk requirements.
Thanks again,
Ron
"Al Mulnick" wrote:
> Easiest first:
>
> "Do I need separate physical disks for each of the above sets?" For some
> yes, for some no. There's a trade-off for each. Read on..
>
> "Is an array necessary for the SMTP que?" - No, but it will provide some
> performance boosts in some situations. RAID 1 would be fine in many
> situations. Your situation may vary, but it's likely it would be fine.
>
> The reason to separate them as a best practice is because of I/O types. I'm
> sure you're familiar with that concept already, but you can generally get
> better perforamance and space with RAID 1+0 than you could with just RAID 1.
> RAID 5 typically incurs a write penalty to update parity across the drives,
> so some disk calculations will have you looking at it like this:
> RAID 0 = write penalty (WP) = 1
> RAID 1 = WP = 1
> RAID 1+0 = WP = 1
> RAID 5 = WP = 4
>
> SMTP traffic is typically write heavy in nature with 7:1 w/r not uncommon.
> Could be higher. That's going to be determined by message size, frequency,
> and volume in most cases. The larger the message the higher the write
> incurred because Exchange has made the decision to follow the RFC by
> accepting the message before processing it. You accept every message before
> doing anything with it in a default configuration. Bottom line? If you
> don't have that much SMTP traffic you may be able to put those queues
> elsewhere (not on the log file drives though).
>
> "Why would you mirror the page file?" Why would you separate it?
> Performance mostly. I think you could leave it on the OS drive and likely
> be fine according to the chart you have listed.
>
> "If I have more than one storage group do my trans logs have to be on
> different physcial drives that are mirrored?"
> It's all about trade-offs. If you have more than one SG, you'll have more
> than one set of logs. One set for each SG to be exact. Since log activity
> is serial write in nature, you may want to separate these to avoid
> performance issues related to disk latencies. Then again, some SAN devices
> can mask this along with buffers in the application etc. Typically, it is
> recommended to separate these to their own disks (phys) to alleviate
> bottlenecks related to disk latencies and to allow for better recovery if
> you lose the store or the binary drives.
>
>
> Was it me and I wasn't going to consider the cluster considerations I might
> lay it out like this:
>
> > C:\OS, Exchange - Raid 1 - direct attached storage >> Keep
> > D:\Page File - Raid 1 - direct attached storage >> Move to OS
> > E:\SMTP and MTA queues - Raid 0+1 - SAN >>D:\RAID1 DAS (note the cluster
> > config may preclude this but I would still leave it RAID 1 if on the san)
> > F:\log files for Group1 - Raid 1 - SAN >> Keep
> > G:\DB for Group1 - Raid 0+1 - SAN >> Keep
> > H:\log files for Group2 - Raid 1 - SAN >> Keep
> > I:\DB for Group2 - Raid 0+1 - SAN >> Keep
>
>
> Does that help?
>
> "rdw24" <rdw24@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:13CFDFC3-60F8-4ED9-BB3A-1E4B41047988@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Have been pulling my hair out trying to design a new Exchange enviroment
> > based on best practices from Microsoft. This is enough to drive someone
> > nuts!
> > We currently utilize pop3 mail thu a Linux box with about 500 users. Will
> > setup and install an Exchange enviroment with the mailbox count for users
> > moving to approximately 1400.
> > Overall plan is to setup an FE/BE config utilizing ISA 2004 out front w/
> > FE
> > residing in internal network. Have already purchased ISA and FE hardware
> > and
> > am now grappling with best setup for BE. My current idea is to set up an
> > Active/Passive Cluster with a small SAN using the HP packaged cluster
> > which
> > is (2) DL380 with a MSA1000 Fiber storage controller.
> > Here is where I get confused. Microsoft best practice recommends: ( Raid
> > 1
> > for OS)-(Raid 1 for page file????)-(Raid 1+0 for SMTP queues)-(Raid 1 for
> > log
> > files)-(Raid 1+0 for DB). Questions are as follows:
> >
> > Why would you mirror the page file?
> > Do I need separate physical disks for each of the above sets?
> > Is an array neccesary for the SMTP que?
> > If I have more than one storage group do my trans logs have to be on
> > different physcial drives that are mirrored?
> >
> > According to MS Optimizing Storage doc my layout would be as follows:
> > C:\OS, Exchange - Raid 1 - direct attached storage
> > D:\Page File - Raid 1 - direct attached storage
> > E:\SMTP and MTA queues - Raid 0+1 - SAN
> > F:\log files for Group1 - Raid 1 - SAN
> > G:\DB for Group1 - Raid 0+1 - SAN
> > H:\log files for Group2 - Raid 1 - SAN
> > I:\DB for Group2 - Raid 0+1 - SAN
> > Thats 4 physical drives in each server and a minimum of 16 drives in the
> > SAN
> > - I only have 14 bay available in the SAN.
> > I would greatly appreciate any help.
> > Thanks,
> > Ron
> >
>
>
>
.
- References:
- Review of new design - Please
- From: rdw24
- Re: Review of new design - Please
- From: Al Mulnick
- Review of new design - Please
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