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New EV server performance question(s)

BigAnvil
Level 5
We've just purchased a new server to host EV.  We currently have a single journal archive.  We are running Exchange 2007.  We store our user archives in the vault store as the journal archive.

The new server is an HP ProLiant DL380 G6.  It has an embedded HP P410i array controller.  It has two Xeon X5550 2.67 GHz quad core CPUs and 12 GB memory.

My plan is:

Windows Server 2008 R2 x64
Enterprise Vault on one array (C:)
Separate array for the indexes (D:) on the internal drives (300GB 15K 3Gb SAS drives) in RAID 0+1, either 600GB or 900GB of storage.
HP MSA70 SAS locally attached storage with 10K drives (E:).  Somewhere around 2.5 TB of storage.

Do I locate the MSMQs on the array with the indexes?  Should I upgrade the P410i controller for the indexes or add two separate array controllers, using the P410i for the OS & EV, an upgraded controller for the indexes, and another upgraded controller for the locally attached MSA70?

Are there any recommendations for setting read/write cache for the controllers?

Thanks!

6 REPLIES 6

Rob_Wilcox1
Level 6
Partner
My personal opinion is that you should to this sizing exercise with a partner or consultant.  You need to take into account the likely number of messages per day/per week/per month, your retention and so on.
Working for cloudficient.com

ZeRoC00L
Level 6
Partner Accredited
BigAnvil, you don't mention the number of users, and size of mail for this configuration.
And also do not forget to take care of the setup of the SQL server, or are you going to run in on the same box?

BigAnvil
Level 5

Mail flow is around 100K messages per day.  We will be upgrading the SQL box but not to something as powerful as what EV will be running on - it is currently running on its own box and will continue to.

We have fewer than 500 mailbox users in the environment.

BigAnvil
Level 5
Rob - Not to badmouth all consultants or partners but we worked with a Symantec partner years ago on the initial setup of EV in our environment.  We then spent the next six months, on and off, fixing what they did wrong - with the help of Symantec support.  We have had the same, if not worse, experience with consultants.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the vast mojaority of consultants/partners we have worked with over the last six years have known no more about what to do or how to build out a system than we have learned just by reading through the forums and product manuals - we got completely screwed by a Microsoft Certified Partner on our Exchange 2007 build out almost three years ago.

We are not anxious to repeat the experience.

Rob_Wilcox1
Level 6
Partner
I understand your pains BigAnvil.  I will try to give my thoughts on your suggested config.

My personal thoughts are that you should go with all the extra disk controllers.  Just stick with what's in the box at the outset (and monitor throughput of course).

You have mentioned that you have 500 mailboxes.  I don't know what sort of company you work for.  Are they 500 information workers - ie heavy users of Outlook?  Office based?  Do you already have mailbox quotas in place?  And Send/Receive message size limits?  How long do you intend to keep the data for?  I am thinking you can do some quick and dirty multiplication of the mailbox sizes, retention, and so on to try to work out the possibility of filling the 2.5Tb of storage.

You can always move the data around after the fact, but it becomes a little painful... but probably not too bad in a medium / small environment as you have outlined here.
Working for cloudficient.com

BigAnvil
Level 5
Rob,

Sorry for the long delay in my response - got so busy I forgot to check back here.  I'm not overly concerned about the amount of storage space.  We went with an HP D2700 enclosure (up to 25 2.5" DP SAS drives) and I've already loaded it up with twelve 300GB drives and configured the array as RAID5.  This will be used just for the vault stores.

The server has an OS/app drive of 72GB RAID 0+1, another 72GB RAID 0+1 for the MSMQs and has four 300GB drives split into a RAID 0+1 mirror for the indexes.  I'm more concerned with performance adjustments to the read/write settings of the controller for the array(s).  I haven't found suggestions for those settings anywhere.  I am setting it at 50% read/50% write to start out with unless you or another expert suggests otherwise.

Just to give you an idea of our current storage, we started using EV in June 2006.  We ingested all our old email from January 2003 - June 1 2006 after it was initially configured.  After ingesting all that, and all the mail since we started using EV to this day we have:

under 200 GB of indexes
1.5 TB of vault stores

Obviously we, as are most organizations, are sending/receiving more mail now than back then but we will also be shedding some of the old emails very soon.  We will also have another 13 open drive bays in the storage enclosure to add space in the future so you can probably see why I'm not very concerned about that aspect.

We are in the financial industry and more than half our employees are either sales people or perform functions related to sales.  For a small company we generate a lot of mail.  Of the ~500 mailboxes we have only ~400 are actual live users.  Others are resource mailboxes or mailboxes for other purposes and don't really generate a lot of traffic.

Thanks very much for your input - greatly appreciated!