HD Advice

[boogster]

I am about to purchase a new server and would like suggestions as to HD config. The old server currently has 2 HD's 1 x C: 250GB 1 x D: 500GB is this fine to replicate on new or would you suggest raid.. if so what config and HD to use

[SYNACK]

Definitely use RAID for a server to give it redundancy. What you get depends on your budget and your needs/expectations of the server.

 

Personally I would go with a bunch of SAS drives in RAID5 and then use seporate partitions for OS and Data rather than splitting it up into to RAID volumes. It is often quicker and is usually more flexible.

 

If it is a low file usage server you could use SATA drives in RAID5.

 

I would suggest at least four drives in your RAID5 set to help with the speed in either configuration.

[boogster]

Thanks synack

 

Was thinking 2 x 500GB SAS with raid1 and partitioning 80-100GB o/s and rest for data. It is smallish primary school, AD, File/Print server nothing too heavy

[SYNACK]

Thanks synack

 

Was thinking 2 x 500GB SAS with raid1 and partitioning 80-100GB o/s and rest for data. It is smallish primary school, AD, File/Print server nothing too heavy

 

That should work fine, if you can stretch to it I would recomend another disk and using RAID5 as this will give you two drives to rebuild a busted one off and also a chorum of three disks meaning that it is far more robust than RAID1. If one disk goes a little wrong in RAID1 and the controller picks it as the one with the right data it can get messy, also rebuilding off a single disk puts lots of strain on it and I have heard of the working one dieing from the stress of the rebuild.

 

For Windows 2008 you will want a minimum of 30GB for the OS partition so with some software installed 80-100GB sounds about right

[boogster]

raid5 is parity and stripe?? (been a long time since doing it) so I would require 3 x 500GB and still configure the 1st one o/s 80-100GB is that right?

[SYNACK]

Yes, all three would be in a RAID5 set which would show up as about a 1TB drive, with this you would create an 80-100GB partition to install the OS and then create another partition with the rest of the space for data. There is no need to seporate the OS and Data on to seporate RAID sets unless you have a real need for speed, lots of disks and at least two RAID controllers.

 

Edit: you could use smaller drives if you wanted, 300GB SAS drives would work out to about 600GB of space leaving 500GB for data.

[pete]

You also could do with a hot spare if budget allows so it'll automatically rebuild if it loses a disk / thinks* it's lost a disk

 

*certain raid controllers are a bit too picky.