| Author |
Message |
Curtis Fray
Guest
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 Posted:
Tue Nov 09, 2004 6:43 pm Post subject:
Advice on hard drive configuration for cluster |
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Hi,
I'm new to clustering. I've been reading over all the MS documents I can
find and have experimented with setting it up using VMWare.
What I'd like is other people advice on the best way to configure the hard
disks for the Server/Exchange 2003 cluster I'm soon to be building.
It's to be installed on two Dell 2650 servers with an attached Dell
PowerVault 220S storage device (all hardware is cluster approved). The
servers each have two 36GB drives and the 220S has five 73GB drives.
Any recommendations on setting this up with regards to RAID, containers,
partitions, and what should go where etc, would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Curtis.
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Ed Woodrick
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Nov 10, 2004 1:03 am Post subject:
Re: Advice on hard drive configuration for cluster |
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The two drives on the server should be configured RAID1 for OS and binaries.
Two drives on the 220s should be configured as RAID1 for Quorum
Two drives on the 220s should be configures as RAID1 for Transaction Logs
As per MS recommendations, two more drives RAID1 for DTC resource. (I often
put these on the Quorum Drives)
Remaining drives, whoops, you don't have enough drives to put the DTC on
it's own drive set.
Remaining 3 drives RAID5 for database. I would NOT EXPECT TO LOAD these
drives to full capacity, the I/O will probably suffer before reaching the
storage capacity. So you'll end up with probably about 80GB usuable storage.
To get more storage, you will need to add spindles and large drives are not
recommended.
"Curtis Fray" <curtis.fray@Xbssmail.nhs.uk> wrote in message
news:uncN8mlxEHA.1292@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
| Quote: | Hi,
I'm new to clustering. I've been reading over all the MS documents I can
find and have experimented with setting it up using VMWare.
What I'd like is other people advice on the best way to configure the hard
disks for the Server/Exchange 2003 cluster I'm soon to be building.
It's to be installed on two Dell 2650 servers with an attached Dell
PowerVault 220S storage device (all hardware is cluster approved). The
servers each have two 36GB drives and the 220S has five 73GB drives.
Any recommendations on setting this up with regards to RAID, containers,
partitions, and what should go where etc, would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Curtis.
====================================
When replying by email please remove the X
====================================
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| Back to top |
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Russ Kaufmann [MCT]
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Nov 10, 2004 1:46 am Post subject:
Re: Advice on hard drive configuration for cluster |
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|
"Ed Woodrick" <ewoodrick@ed-nospam-com.com> wrote in message
news:O0t0Z7oxEHA.3164@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
| Quote: | The two drives on the server should be configured RAID1 for OS and
binaries.
Two drives on the 220s should be configured as RAID1 for Quorum
Two drives on the 220s should be configures as RAID1 for Transaction Logs
As per MS recommendations, two more drives RAID1 for DTC resource. (I
often put these on the Quorum Drives)
Remaining drives, whoops, you don't have enough drives to put the DTC on
it's own drive set.
Remaining 3 drives RAID5 for database. I would NOT EXPECT TO LOAD these
drives to full capacity, the I/O will probably suffer before reaching the
storage capacity. So you'll end up with probably about 80GB usuable
storage. To get more storage, you will need to add spindles and large
drives are not recommended.
|
I would also recommend a RAID 1 set for the SMTP queue.
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Curtis Fray
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Nov 10, 2004 3:39 pm Post subject:
Re: Advice on hard drive configuration for cluster |
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Hi,
Thanks very much for your input. Adding more disks is not a problem. I have
another 5 spare (all 73GB) and I'd rather get this set up properly from the
start.
Just to clarify, from what is suggested below would that mean I'd need a
total of 7 physical disks in the 220S?
x2 disks RAID1 with two partitions - 1 for Quorum and 1 for DTC resource
x2 disks RAID1 with two partitions - 1 for Transaction Logs and 1 for SMTP
queue
x3 disks RAID5 for database
Or more?
When you say you wouldn't expect to load the database drives to capacity, do
you mean rather than use the whole 73GB capacity of each disk you'd maybe
only make 40GB partitions (for example) on all three drives and set them to
RAID5?
Thanks again for your help.
Regards,
Curtis.
==================================
"Russ Kaufmann [MCT]" <russ@exchangemct.nospam.com> wrote in message
news:uCKjnSpxEHA.3976@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
| Quote: | "Ed Woodrick" <ewoodrick@ed-nospam-com.com> wrote in message
news:O0t0Z7oxEHA.3164@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
The two drives on the server should be configured RAID1 for OS and
binaries.
Two drives on the 220s should be configured as RAID1 for Quorum
Two drives on the 220s should be configures as RAID1 for Transaction Logs
As per MS recommendations, two more drives RAID1 for DTC resource. (I
often put these on the Quorum Drives)
Remaining drives, whoops, you don't have enough drives to put the DTC on
it's own drive set.
Remaining 3 drives RAID5 for database. I would NOT EXPECT TO LOAD these
drives to full capacity, the I/O will probably suffer before reaching the
storage capacity. So you'll end up with probably about 80GB usuable
storage. To get more storage, you will need to add spindles and large
drives are not recommended.
I would also recommend a RAID 1 set for the SMTP queue.
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Rodney R. Fournier [MVP]
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Nov 10, 2004 8:27 pm Post subject:
Re: Advice on hard drive configuration for cluster |
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Clustering does care if the drives have partitions or not. Clustering uses
the drive as a whole. A clustered disk resource = the whole physical drive.
So in your example, the Quorum and DTC would not need to be separated, they
would be in the same group anyways. Now if you can carve out channels or
LUNs, clustering will separate them.
Cheers,
Rod
MVP - Windows Server - Clustering
http://www.nw-america.com - Clustering
http://www.msmvps.com/clustering - Blog
"Curtis Fray" <curtis.fray@Xbssmail.nhs.uk> wrote in message
news:eFu2qkwxEHA.2200@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
| Quote: | Hi,
Thanks very much for your input. Adding more disks is not a problem. I
have another 5 spare (all 73GB) and I'd rather get this set up properly
from the start.
Just to clarify, from what is suggested below would that mean I'd need a
total of 7 physical disks in the 220S?
x2 disks RAID1 with two partitions - 1 for Quorum and 1 for DTC resource
x2 disks RAID1 with two partitions - 1 for Transaction Logs and 1 for SMTP
queue
x3 disks RAID5 for database
Or more?
When you say you wouldn't expect to load the database drives to capacity,
do you mean rather than use the whole 73GB capacity of each disk you'd
maybe only make 40GB partitions (for example) on all three drives and set
them to RAID5?
Thanks again for your help.
Regards,
Curtis.
==================================
"Russ Kaufmann [MCT]" <russ@exchangemct.nospam.com> wrote in message
news:uCKjnSpxEHA.3976@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
"Ed Woodrick" <ewoodrick@ed-nospam-com.com> wrote in message
news:O0t0Z7oxEHA.3164@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
The two drives on the server should be configured RAID1 for OS and
binaries.
Two drives on the 220s should be configured as RAID1 for Quorum
Two drives on the 220s should be configures as RAID1 for Transaction
Logs
As per MS recommendations, two more drives RAID1 for DTC resource. (I
often put these on the Quorum Drives)
Remaining drives, whoops, you don't have enough drives to put the DTC on
it's own drive set.
Remaining 3 drives RAID5 for database. I would NOT EXPECT TO LOAD these
drives to full capacity, the I/O will probably suffer before reaching
the storage capacity. So you'll end up with probably about 80GB usuable
storage. To get more storage, you will need to add spindles and large
drives are not recommended.
I would also recommend a RAID 1 set for the SMTP queue.
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Russ Kaufmann [MCT]
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Nov 10, 2004 11:32 pm Post subject:
Re: Advice on hard drive configuration for cluster |
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"Curtis Fray" <curtis.fray@Xbssmail.nhs.uk> wrote in message
news:eFu2qkwxEHA.2200@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
| Quote: | Hi,
Thanks very much for your input. Adding more disks is not a problem. I
have another 5 spare (all 73GB) and I'd rather get this set up properly
from the start.
Just to clarify, from what is suggested below would that mean I'd need a
total of 7 physical disks in the 220S?
x2 disks RAID1 with two partitions - 1 for Quorum and 1 for DTC resource
x2 disks RAID1 with two partitions - 1 for Transaction Logs and 1 for SMTP
queue
|
Nope. While this will work, the idea for the SMTP being on its own disk is
for performance reasons, so it needs its own RAID 1 set.
| Quote: | x3 disks RAID5 for database
Or more?
When you say you wouldn't expect to load the database drives to capacity,
do you mean rather than use the whole 73GB capacity of each disk you'd
maybe only make 40GB partitions (for example) on all three drives and set
them to RAID5?
|
This will depend on the device. For example, a Symmetrix box can carve up
disks into smaller pieces and spread these small pieces over multiple disks
and then present those as a single lun of X meg in size. However, other
devices are not as complex and they can't divide up disks into many pieces
and create LUNs that span those disks. |
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Curtis Fray
Guest
|
| Posted:
Thu Nov 11, 2004 2:44 pm Post subject:
Re: Advice on hard drive configuration for cluster |
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Ok thanks. I will need to get another couple of disks to fully do this. Is
it possible for me to set it up initially with the SMTP and Transaction Logs
on one partition and then move it once I have the extra disks? Or, in the
mean time, is there a better drive it could go on that would make the
performance as effecient as possible?
Thanks again to everyone for your input so far! It's been very helpful.
Curtis.
"Russ Kaufmann [MCT]" <russ@exchangemct.nospam.com> wrote in message
news:eJkefs0xEHA.1308@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
| Quote: | "Curtis Fray" <curtis.fray@Xbssmail.nhs.uk> wrote in message
news:eFu2qkwxEHA.2200@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
Hi,
Thanks very much for your input. Adding more disks is not a problem. I
have another 5 spare (all 73GB) and I'd rather get this set up properly
from the start.
Just to clarify, from what is suggested below would that mean I'd need a
total of 7 physical disks in the 220S?
x2 disks RAID1 with two partitions - 1 for Quorum and 1 for DTC resource
x2 disks RAID1 with two partitions - 1 for Transaction Logs and 1 for
SMTP queue
Nope. While this will work, the idea for the SMTP being on its own disk is
for performance reasons, so it needs its own RAID 1 set.
x3 disks RAID5 for database
Or more?
When you say you wouldn't expect to load the database drives to capacity,
do you mean rather than use the whole 73GB capacity of each disk you'd
maybe only make 40GB partitions (for example) on all three drives and set
them to RAID5?
This will depend on the device. For example, a Symmetrix box can carve up
disks into smaller pieces and spread these small pieces over multiple
disks and then present those as a single lun of X meg in size. However,
other devices are not as complex and they can't divide up disks into many
pieces and create LUNs that span those disks.
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Russ Kaufmann [MCT]
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Nov 11, 2004 10:40 pm Post subject:
Re: Advice on hard drive configuration for cluster |
|
|
"Curtis Fray" <curtis.fray@Xbssmail.nhs.uk> wrote in message
news:uBYJhq8xEHA.392@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
| Quote: | Ok thanks. I will need to get another couple of disks to fully do this. Is
it possible for me to set it up initially with the SMTP and Transaction
Logs on one partition and then move it once I have the extra disks? Or, in
the mean time, is there a better drive it could go on that would make the
performance as effecient as possible?
|
Just leave it in its default location. |
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