Hi All, We are going to deploy Exchange server 2007 in our organization. I would need advice and suggestion from you experts for RAID configuration. Here is the hardware configuration. Intel Quard Core Xoen 2.26 GHZ 4GB RAM 4x 500 GB Enterprise SATA 3.0 Gb/s Hard drives. What should be the RAID configuration for exchange server2007 keeping the above no of HDD in mind. We would have around 300 Users in total. Please help

The best configuration would be RAID1 for OS drive and RAID10 for each DB drive the same for each SG Log Drive. for this configuration you would need at least 10 LUNS (10 HDD if you dont have SAN attached) if you going to have only 1 SG Drive and 1 Log Drive. For the current configuration, you can go for one drive for OS (500 gb is no use but you can utilize it with HT queues or Logs etc.) and 3 drives for RAID5 config. Please Consider looking at the below article. Planning Storage Configuration. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124518.aspx Thanks Vishal Ramnani | MCITP - Exchange 2007 | MCSE Messaging | MCTS - Win 2008 Config

In order to achieve fast response times for clients and large mailbox per user, primary choices are RAID 10 or RAID 5 And yes, RAID 10 is much more preferred. With RAID 10, an entire storage enclosure can fail without affecting the availability of the storage subsystem See below thread from various professionals view about RAID -10 http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchangesvrgeneral/thread/4eec01c2-cfd6-482e-af3c-21a83ee88079/ http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchangesvrdeploy/thread/0dba324c-551a-4af5-81c4-e209136920b4 Vinod |CCNA|MCSE 2003 +Messaging|MCTS|ITIL V3|

Similar discussion, refer below thread for RAID level consideration reference... http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchangesvrdeploy/thread/0dba324c-551a-4af5-81c4-e209136920b4Amit Tank | MVP Exchange Server | MCITP: EMA | MCSA: M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

Try this link http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/01/15/432207.aspxAndrew Sword, MVP

Hi, Yes, we recommend RAID 10 or RAID 5 for this case. Regarding the comparison between RAID 10 and RAID 5, quote from Microsoft IT Showcase : Microsoft IT uses RAID 10 also because RAID 10 performs better than RAID 5. With RAID 10, write operations are free of parity calculations, and RAID 10 uses more disks than RAID 5 to deliver the same capacity, which benefits I/O performance when the storage subsystem is being designed for capacity. For example, it takes six 146-GB disks to build a RAID 10 drive with 438 GB of raw capacity. RAID 5 only requires four 146-GB disks to accomplish the same. Assuming SFF enterprise disks with a spindle speed of 10,000 revolutions per minute (RPM), capable of performing approximately 160 I/O operations per second (IOPS), the RAID 10 drive can handle 960 read IOPS (6 * 160 = 960), whereas the RAID 5 drive can only reach 640 read IOPS (4 * 160 = 640). Disk throughput and server response times are important design criteria for Microsoft IT because slow Mailbox servers affect employee productivity. Response times above 20 ms are tolerable only for short periods of time on a highly loaded system, but not on an ongoing basis because users will notice slow Office Outlook client behavior in online mode, such as when switching folders or composing new messages. Especially with large mailboxes, users need to be able to work fast and perform reliable searches to locate information quickly. I suggest you read the similar thread provided by Amit for more information. Thanks, Elvis

Thank You everything for your help. I was very helpful for me... Thanks.