Re: Newbie to SBS2003
- From: "Blenky" <sblenkhorn@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 24 Aug 2006 12:33:05 -0700
See my answers inline below...
catphishum@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Good Afternoon - My company is doing some network upgrades & it looks
like we are going to go with SBS2003 Premium. We are a small outfit,
with about 10 workstations, & would like to have the many built in
functionalities SBS offers, along with ease of use I have read about.
I have been lurking on google groups over the past few weeks & am very
impressed with the level of support in this NG. I have some questions
regarding SBS & wonder if you folks can give me any assistance -
This NG is great. The world wouldn't be the same without it. Kudos to
all the MVPs and others who spend time answering questions (and
Microsoft themselves too).
We have decided on a Dell Power Edge 2900 server to house SBS on. It
seems to be a decent midrange server & will be fine for us for several
years. I've configured just about everything to my liking, but I'm a
little confused on the RAID section of choices under hard drives. Why
do I want RAID & will this be easy to manage once selected? Do most of
you recommend a certain RAID configuration over another? I see, RAID
0, 1, 5, or 10. There seems to be two types of primary controllers - a
PERC 5/i or SAS 5/i. I can't find any documentation as to recommend
which to go with. Any suggestions? There are also striped vs. mirrored
configurations. It is all very confusing.
RAID is a way of mirroring or striping data (dependent on the RAID
level; 0,1,5,10,etc) across multiple hard drives. I would HIGHLY
reccommend RAID. The RAID level that you choose varies dependent on
your budget. At the very least I would recommend RAID-1 which would
require 2 identical drives, and the data would simply be mirrored on
each (the HDs would be "clones" of each other). Stripping (RAID-0) is
where data is broken into chunks and written across multiple hard
drives - since you are breaking the data up, and writing to separate
drives, the write process is quicker since you have two writes
happening at the same time. The proble with stripping is that you gain
performance, but you lose out on data mirroring (i.e if 1 of the HD
fails, your server is down). So typically I see or use RAID-1 (2
identical HDs) or RAID-5 (at least 3 identical HDs). Even better if
you can get a hot swappable server you won't even have to turn your
server off when you lose a drive in a RAID-1/RAID-5 setup.
Also, what is a flex bay? This particular model offers a 1x2 flex bay,
which it appears that you can put hard drives in. Does anyone
recommend this solution, and if so, for what reason?
In reading about different configurations for Servers running SBS2003,
it seems like many recommend the 2 NIC configuration, w/1 NIC going to
the internet (DSL in our case) and the other NIC going to the network
switch. I found an overview of setting this up at -
http://www.smallbizserver.net/Default.aspx?tabid=266&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=76
Depends on how you want to configure the network. Are you going to
have an external hardware based firewall (i.e. Watchguard or something
similar)? I would recommend that. Even still, you may choose, since
you will be getting Premium, to run the ISA Server as well, which would
mean you require 2 NICs - as you mentioned, one for your "external"
network, and then one for your internal network.
Is this the configuration you pros on this NG recommend?
For Backup, I read that smaller organizations would do okay by rotating
3 External USB HD's. This sounds like a cheap & easy solution for us.
We really don't need to invest alot in a tape drive config. Also, I
read that it is wise to install SBS at least 3 times before putting it
into production. I think I will take that advice when the time comes,
as it will be new to me.
The ease of use for USB drives and their price makes them a great
choice. Your speed and ability to recover from lost files is greater
with USB / attached storage devices versus tapes as well as your time
required to complete a backup. Tapes do have a more limited lifespan
versus HD as well, and are prone to fail more often. Either way you
should look at what your backup requirements are, how much data you
want to store long-term, etc, and make the decision based on that (i.e.
if you want to keep a monthly fall-back point, then USB drives would
start to get expensive). I personally use a combination of tapes (or
DVDs) and attached storage devices (NAS drive and USB drives).
Any other suggestions are highly appreciated, as is any feedback to my
questions. Thanks so much for your help on this...
Brian
Memphis, TN
Good luck!
.
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- Newbie to SBS2003
- From: catphishum
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