Optimizing Storage for Exchange Server 2003
September 3, 2004 at 10:48 AM
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Overview
Are you planning to deploy Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003? Are you concerned about availability, fault tolerance and performance? If so, it is critical that you understand how to optimize your storage system for Exchange Server 2003, regardless of the size of your organization.
Disk subsystem bottlenecks cause more performance problems than server-side CPU or RAM deficiencies, and a poorly designed disk subsystem can leave your organization vulnerable to hardware malfunctions. Specifically, your disk subsystem is performing poorly if it is experiencing:
- Average read and write latencies over 20 ms.
- Latency spikes over 50 ms that last for more than a few seconds.
High disk latency is synonymous with slow performance. To reduce costly disk latency issues, at a minimum, you should:
- Invest in high performance disks and spindles.
- Consider performance before capacity.
- Align your disks by using DiskPar.
All of these topics are discussed in this guide. In general, to optimize your storage system and avoid high disk latency issues, you need to understand:
- The causes of Exchange disk I/O.
- How to calculate your disk I/O requirements.
- How to optimize your specific storage architecture.
- How to verify the performance of your storage system.
Download guide here...