Re: Better to use Basic or Dynamic drive in a RAID 5

winserver via WinServerKB.com wrote:
> Hi All
>
> I have today received my new Server 2003 to be used as a Terminal Server on a
> SBS 2003 Domain.
>
> The machine has been delivered with the following configuration:
>
> 1 x 1TB hard drive on a RAID 1 for the Operating System with a hardware RAID
> controller – formatted as Basic Disk configuration
>
> 5 x 1TB drives on a RAID 5 for Data again with a hardware RAID controller –
> this has been formatted a Dynamic Disks with a simple volume of 3.5TB and
> 200GB
>
> Normally I only use Basic drives with the normal partitions.
>
> My question is that, in your opinion would you change the Dynamic disks back
> to Basic and format them in the normal way with 2 partitions (3.5TB and 200GB)
> or leave them as they are.
>
> The supplier says that it is better to have them as Dynamic, but I have read
> various posts which makes me doubt this theory and it would be better to go
> back to Basic.
>
> Unless, of course there is a reason why I should not change them.
>
> Your comments would be very much appreciated as at the moment the data drives
> are currently empty
>
> Thanks for your time
>
> Ray
>
> P.S. originally the configuration was supposed to be 6 x 1TB drives entirely
> as a RAID 5 with 3 partitions 800GB / 4.0TB / 200GB – but the supplier said
> due to limitations on drive sizes on a RAID the above is the best option
>

So you have 7 drives? Who are these folks? 1TB for a boot drive?? I
always configure the boot drive as a RAID 1 with the smallest drives
provided.

It's also a mystery to me why you have so much storage on a TS server.
Normally, data is stored on a file server.....

Another thing... What is the RAID 5 array being used for? If a lot of
Read & Writes are being done, I would suggest a RAID 10 is better. RAID
5 is possibly the slowest performing array....

Unfortunately, it appears that "the deed is done", so let's figure out
the best approach. Partitioning the boot drive is first..... Best to
have the OS on a small partition (< 100 MB).

--

Regards,
Hank Arnold
Microsoft MVP
Windows Server - Directory Services
http://mypcassistant.blogspot.com/