How much RAM to install?

[robnicholson]

Are there any sizing guidelines for CPU & memory in the host? The sizing guide only talks about disks:

http://www.starwindsoftware.com/san-sizing-guide

After a chat with sales, I suspect that almost any current Dell PowerEdge with dual multi-core (six core is our plan) CPUs would have plenty of CPU power as the bottlenecks are elsewhere.

But what about memory for caching? Current size of primary systems are a 1TB file server, 150GB Exchange 2007 mailbox serving ~100 users.

16GB is about the least we'd put in a server these days but could go to 32GB but don't want to spend money if it's really not going to add performance benefits.

Cheers, Rob.

[@ziz (staff)]

Are there any sizing guidelines for CPU & memory in the host? The sizing guide only talks about disks:

http://www.starwindsoftware.com/san-sizing-guide

After a chat with sales, I suspect that almost any current Dell PowerEdge with dual multi-core (six core is our plan) CPUs would have plenty of CPU power as the bottlenecks are elsewhere.

But what about memory for caching? Current size of primary systems are a 1TB file server, 150GB Exchange 2007 mailbox serving ~100 users.

16GB is about the least we'd put in a server these days but could go to 32GB but don't want to spend money if it's really not going to add performance benefits.

Cheers, Rob.

Hi Rob
1-2GB of cache (in write-back mode) per target will be quite enough and will significantly improve performance.
Regarding other requirement, today you will receive an email with needed information.

[robnicholson]

Thanks for this. We'll have three primary targets (couple of other rarely used/very low bandwidth) so sounds like 16GB will be fine.

Regards, Rob.

[@ziz (staff)]

Thanks for this. We'll have three primary targets (couple of other rarely used/very low bandwidth) so sounds like 16GB will be fine.

Regards, Rob.

Yes, it will be more than you need. For the primary targets you can allocate 2GB/target, for other targets 512MB will be enough.

[robnicholson]

Another slightly related question. On a physical server, we'd normally have one big RAID array which we'd then partition are a relatively small C: drive (e.g. 50GB) for the operating system and a much larger E: drive for the data drive (e don't tend to create two RAID arrays for C: and E:)

Would you recommend creating one target on StarWind and partitioning in Windows as above or creating two targets?

Regards, Rob.

[@ziz (staff)]

Another slightly related question. On a physical server, we'd normally have one big RAID array which we'd then partition are a relatively small C: drive (e.g. 50GB) for the operating system and a much larger E: drive for the data drive (e don't tend to create two RAID arrays for C: and E:)

Would you recommend creating one target on StarWind and partitioning in Windows as above or creating two targets?

Regards, Rob.

Sure it will be better to create 1 target for C and a second one for E.