Re: DC RAID Configuration

1. I wouldn't. I would do 0+1/10/5 for RAID, you could even likely get away with a single mirror on those machines since the number of users is so small assuming there isn't any real heavy duty AD apps. I run a single RAID set even on the biggest DCs I work with which includes DCs for 200k+ user environments. Page file really is a non-issue on DCs since most of the memory should be going to AD Cache which will never go into the page file. Maybe have two logical drives simply to separate OS and DIT/LOGS (not for perf) and throw the page file with the OS on C.

2. If you don't have battery backup, disable write-back caching.

--
Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
www.joeware.net


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jamestulloch wrote:
Hi,

I have to deploy about 30 2003 DCs. 2500 users across 40 Europe wide
locations. Each server has 6 disks. I have two issues.

1) Do I make three mirrors and put OS on 1, SYSVOL on 2 and NTDS.dit
on 3. Ten where does the page file go? I have 2GB memory.

2) My onboard RAID Controller does not have battery back up. Do I
insiste that we get new cards or should we stick with onboard. If we do
should I enable write back on the cache.

Any thoughts? Joe from Joeware published a response to a similar
question in 2004, but nowhere I look does MS say. HP recommend the
above but dont mention page file. I am proposing keeing it with the OS
unless soemone out there can give me a more definite pointer.

TIA

James

.

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