Best Practices Question about Exchange

[jtall66]

I've a question about best practices for exchange.

I'm building a new san with an HP MSA array behind a server. It has 9 drives plus one for hotspare.

Typically you'll read that the database should be on a raid 5 array because of the random read/writes and the logs on a mirror for the sequential operations. With a SAN does the same hold true? ie: should I build one 9 drive array and part it out or a 7 drive raid 5 and a mirrored pair for logs? (using the raid 5 for other mixed storage as well?)

I guess the same question would hold true for SQL, and would having two sets of logs on one mirrored pair be a hindrance?

Thanks for any assistance and insight you can lend! This kind of information is lacking in the general SAN operation materials I've been able to find.

Jim

[Robert (staff)]

Hello Jim,

Yes, RAID-5 is generally regarded as one of the best data protection scenario.

For using with StarWind iSCSI SAN you can create two RAID-5 arrays, export them as diskbridge devices using StarWind and build an SQL cluster on this configuration.

Thanks,
Rob

[jtall66]

Thank you for the reply. I understand from a data protection standpoint, but in the exchange point of view is the dual raid 5 what is going to perform best?

Thanks,

Jim

[Robert (staff)]

Jim,

Yes, I think dual RAID 5 (striped) would be the best for both data protection and speed.

Thanks
Rob