Hi - We are running Exchange 2007 sp1 on a x64 Windows 2003 ENT - OS and Install drives are mirrored - C: 70 GB D: 60 GB The remaining drives are connected to an EMC SAN via an HBA card all are Raid 5 E: LOGS 500 GB F: Storage 1 250 GB G: Storage 2 250 GB H: Storage 3 250 GB I: Storage 4 250 GB. We are looking to go with Basic Disks - Primary partitions - I have come across these articles http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb738145.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb738145.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998219.aspx I have consulted with the storage vendor - not a real help but did say to use the 64K block size. What is the "default" block size 4K?? I am not familiar with GPT - and we want to keep it simple. The only drive that has been created / assigned is E: the log drive - BASIC / PRIMARY and Default on the formatting. I still need to do the remaining drives/storage - Am I on the correct path here of using diskpart.exe to setup the remaining storag on the SAN @ 64K block size? I am trying to keep it simple - each 250 GB storage drive will hold 2 x 100 GB mail storage DB - giving us about 50GB free space to play with. Any thoughts? Thanks. -John

John, About the block size this is indeed 4K, most vendors recommand 64k block sizes. This has to do with reducing the latency when writing to SAN volumes.To change the block size you indeed need to use diskpart, this needs to be done before formatting the disks. (http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2005/08/10/408950.aspx) If you would like to use GPT disks keep in mind that this is not supported on Window 2003 Clustered environments.(http://support.microsoft.com/?id=284134) Also check the Exchange storage requirements tool on the MS Exchange team blog (http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/01/15/432207.aspx) As last tip check this site: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/01/15/432199.aspx Regards, Johan blog: www.johanveldhuis.nl

Hello John, Additionally, suggest you to go for RAID-10 instead of RAID-5 for Exchange 2007 database drive. RAID-5 is better but RADI-10 is best for speed and transactional i/o performance. Reference: Storage Technology http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb738146.aspx