Server Hardware Requirements?

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r71cuda

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I am looking to run SQL Server 2000 and Exchange 2003 on a Windows 2003 server and I need to buy a new server. I have approximately 75 users who will use Exchange and about 5-10 users who will use SQL. I was going to buy a server with dual Xeon processors, 2GB RAM & RAID 5.
I was told that I should not use RAID 5 and that I should use RAID 1.

My question is, why not RAID 5? I checked online and found that RAID 5 is recommeded for email and database servers, so why would I be told not to use RAID 5 and to use RAID 1?

Thanks,
Scott
 
raid 5 uses multiple drives and it is hot swappable. If 1 drive dies, you can put a new one in and it will rebuild itself. it is fault tolerant. Raid 1 is mirroring. whatever data you have it, is copied to both drives, it is fault tolerant. Generally speaking, you get a lot better performance with raid 5. You could use raid 15 if you wanted, it is a where you mirror your raid 5. i personally would just use raid 5, depending how many disks you get
 
Thanks jseber1982, but I already knew the differences between the RAID levels, I am more so looking to find out if RAID 5 could be an issue with SQL and/or Exchange.
Anyone have any suggestions about my config? Should I go with RAID 5 when running SQL & Exchange 2003? Should I not run these two applications on the same server? Anyone?

Scott
 
i dont know much about servers but i think u should look at the opteron cpus cos i know they are really really good. maybes abit more ram aswel, with servers they need alot.
 
Dont use RAID 5... SQL, especially, due to constant dynamic file updates. The constant writing will be penalized with RAID 5, RAID 0+1 is best. Also, stick with the dual xeon, its what we use on our SQL 2000 servers, with 2Gig of memory... SQL is a serious resource hog. also stay away from software RAID with big dbases or SQL
 
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