Co-Location Server disk configuration

Five_Star · 17 Jul 2008 at 10:50

Hi,
We’re consolidating our web hosting solutions onto our own dedicated co-located server, but I’m hoping people can offer advice on if we’re going in the right direction with the disk setup.
We’re hoping to virtualises the machine in the following way. All sites would use the one SQL server to store data.

Server2k8 x64 Hyper-v
Server2k8 x64 standard (SQL server 2005)
Server2k8 web edition x4 (dedicated sites)
Server2k8 web edition (shared hosting sites)

We were thinking about 2x146GB RAID 1 for the OS and for data 4x300GB RAID 5 with 1 hot spare using a Dell PERC 6/I RAID controller.
Another option as suggested in a different thread is to go for a RAID 10 setup with 4x300GB disks. What advantage would this offer over the RAID 5 option and can you have a hot spare in a RAID 10 solution?

Five_Star · 17 Jul 2008 at 14:47

Thanks for the input on the disks, the database is the largest single storage requirement so I'm not too sure how much space we would have to expand in future on the RAID 1 array.

We can squeeze eight disks into the chassis so we could go with
2x146GB RAID 1 (OS)
2x146GB RAID 1 (Database)
4x146GB RAID 5 (other data)

as per the virtualization its for customers paying a lot more for dedicated boxes who are happy with the price, but if you have ideas on a different solution I'd be happy to hear them.

Cheers

Five_Star · 17 Jul 2008 at 18:40

we're fully paid up MS supports here, been testing Hyper-v for a while and happy enough with its performance and price. Plus we have people with the skills who are wanting to learn it and develop as it does.

I did notice that the Dell 2950 servers only offer 146GB right now too

shame. I think its time to ask our account manager for two quotes either way.

Please feel free to comment on this setup or what would be a good database enabled webserver.

Cheers

Five_Star · 30 Jul 2008 at 08:12

Update: we went for 2x146GB SAS Raid 1 and 3x300GB SAS Raid 5 with a hot spare, all 15k RPM.
I've been setting up the Hyper-V machines, seems very responsive so far but not tested the Raid 5 partition for speed yet.

Five_Star · 30 Jul 2008 at 12:43

Yeah I've noticed its rather slow at copying to the Raid 5 volume, about 30MB/s according to Vista copy info. Thankfully the DB are all all read heavy and updates applied over night.