Re: suggestions on network storage

Howdy,

No, it depends on your business being able to eat the down-time for a
rebuild.

I accept this and I did concede the point. In fact my opening statement was that I felt any enterprise that was 'exceeding capacity' could easily afford such things. No-one ever factors in the down time. It seems to be human nature.

Ghost requires some place to store the images, so, if you're going to
have another PC with that much storage space then you already can afford
RAID.

:-) Almost. 1TB storage now costs less than US150 - Winchester and Maxtor. The average server install is < 32GB with sql server installed so you could store 30 such images. We use them to store all our VMs. And a portable drive is the best place to store such things.

Oh, and another point. RAID won't stop an OS corruption or mess up. You will still need to rebuild your OS in such circumstances so the portable drive is a good backup.

You do understand that this is a SBS group, right?

Yes - you do understand that you can create differential backups and SharePoint is free. Yes you need to do them without the Wizard but are you suggesting this is difficult? Before SBS we didn't have the backup Wizard. But in any event I was talking about SQL backups. We are talking Premium. And sql backups will generally be your most important. Mail is self backed up to users PCs and the OS backup is not that important.

SBS does not do incremental backups, it does FULL backups, 1 time per

No, it can do both. I suggest you look into the backup tool.

As for hourly backups of logs, yes, you can do that too, but it's not
built into SBS, and this is a SBS group talking about SBS solutions.

For data! This is an SBS forum after all. SQL and SharePoint exists here! Surprised you don't at least use SharePoint for your document management and storage.

So, if you've got this non-standard SBS solution running, the server
takes a total dump, how long does it take you to get them back online
and working without any loss of data? I'm willing to bet that the cost
of a RAID array is vastly cheaper. Even a lowly on-board RAID controller
with multiple drives (say 4 to 6) is cheaper than a single instance of
you having to rebuild the server 1 time.

Please, this is not a religious argument about RAID. Did you get out of the wrong side of the bed today? I happen to agree that RAID has its place but the guy wants to cut corners and this is one corner you can cut. There are many places that CAN wear a day of downtime and yes, 1 day is enough to fully restore an SBS site if you have planned it all. And no, this is not a non-standard SBS site, it is very standard down this neck of the woods.

No, but I got the point that you're telling him he "Needs" 2008 because
it will make his business more efficient, and none of us can tell him
that based on his provided information.

You don't read - I never said 'need' as an imperative. Heck the product isn't even released yet. I recommend both you and he investigate 2008 because it does have substantial improvements in many of its tools and features. IIS 7 and Exchange 2007 alone are worth the trouble but ISA 2006 (or whatever they put in SBS 2008) is way ahead of 2004. The wizards are better, the backup is better, SQL Server is better....

You, again, mistake one part of a message for a lot more than it is. I
have 8 servers in my office here, all of them are less than 2 years old,

Oh! You started the argument claiming 10 yr old hardware and now it s 2. Ok :-) Thank you for clarifying that but you obviously get my point too. But there is an overhead in managing hardware on that basis. Instead I prefer complete machine replacement then a demotion of the old server to workstation status - every 2 years. The reason: every 2 years seems to see a dramatic step in capability and performance.

As for missing something - With a Quad Quad Core box, 32GB RAM, etc...
I'm not missing much, but, this is a SBS group, so there is no point in
talking about Quad Quad boxes.

Yes I think you are. SBS runs on hardware does it not? Appropriate hardware is intrinsic to appropriate system performance. If you want your SBS box to run well then you separate out exchange onto a separate physical drive (or array) and flood the box with RAM. If you can afford it, put your OS onto an 32GB SSD and it will sing to you. Of course if performance is not an issue then please disregard all of this but you said you were a RAID person so I am betting you are also a performance person.

No, you're right, you are offering an "Alternative view", but I'm not
"under compensating" anything. Your suggestion flys in the face of good
business practices that have been proven reliable for decades by most of
the world.

I don't think so. You are just picking out one element of a large and complex mix. RAID was utterly necessary once to compensate flaky reliability in drives. They are better these days so the need is not as great. If you can afford it then sure, knock yourself out with RAID. But when in the same breath you start telling me you keep 10 yr old components in your server I know you aren't being balanced or consistent.

My experience is reasonably vast, and it covers decades of working on
these types of things, and it also covers knowing how to build reliable

Yes, but put like this makes you sound a little bit of a dinosaur <g>. Put your OS on a 32GB SSD and forget RAID. MTFF and MTBF are so low and the performance is so high you will throw your complex and sometimes performance reducing RAID in the trash can immediately. Look into SSD - it is the next generation of storage media.

LOL, Preventive maintenance is when you REPLACE IT BEFORE IT FAILS, not
after it fails :)

NOW you're getting the picture! :) That is where I started this discussion. My suggestion to the fellow was to replace his hardware now, not pad it out with storage solutions. Get your storage solution all right but for reasons that you need storage, not to extend the life of the server box.

You mistake your impression of what I have experience with.

Well I don't know. I haven't made any assumptions about your experience yet.

RAID is for the server itself, at least the OS array, and it's not
optional in my view (as well as most any IT person's view that supports

Can we get off the religious argument here. Less than 1 in 10 installations I've seen employ RAID - in the US and in Oz. It is certainly the purists choice and certainly in use in larger installations but most small companies busy a single server box for SBS and that's it! And they are still running trouble free 3 years later and most can wear a day of down time.

Having 2008 will not benefit MOST businesses that use 2008 currently,
it's got a lot of nice features, but it's not going to dramatically

Was that a typo? I guess you meant 2003 currently. Ok, but I didn't say dramatic but I am saying substantial. Have you reviewed 2008? There are productivity measures here really worth investigating. Take a look at the EBS range of OS. Again, the improvement in migration tools, reporting, centralised management, Hyper-V and TS are seriously worth reviewing. This is not just some pretty upgrade. Now whether or not you want to do this is up to you. I am recommending you review it. It is you who is upgrading my remarks.

On a busy 70 user SBS box, a MIRROR for the OS, and a RAID 5 with 4-6
drives for user data, and another small RAID-5 for Exchange or SQL would

You don't have to convince me, I keep telling you that, but your discussion is irrelevant. The guy hasn't explained the size of his user base so we don't know. He just said he needed to expand his server capacity and that he was short of money. My point is that the two concepts are mutually exclusive. If you need to expand then you can afford to and you have to. Simple math :). You convince of the need for RAID and I will convince of the need for better OS hardware. I will convince you both to investigate 2008.

Geoff

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