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13382
November 17th, 2011 10:00
Exchange 2010 on EqualLogic - VMFS volume?
Hi Everyone,
I'm just in the planning stages of a Exchange 2010 deployment (upgrade from 03). Although I've attended a fair amount of EQL webinars on exchange and read probably every best practice doc out there, I can't seem to get a straight answer about a fairly major point - how best to host the storage. This will be a relatively small exchange deployment (500 mailboxes, 1 PS4000XV, 2 Dell R910's on vSphere 5).
I can't seem to find any consensus on how to host the storage. What I'm talking about is either do you A) Make the exchange data volume a simple VMDK disk (within a VMFS volume on the EQL), or B) Make the exchange data volume sit directly on the SAN (i.e. RDM or iSCSI Target, so that the exchange data is not inside VMFS).
Everything I'm reading seems to say that the ASM/ME tools need to be able to talk to the volume directly on the SAN, making option B the one to go with. I know there could be advantages and disadvantages to both, so perhaps one option isn't a slam dunk, but are there any opinions out there on the matter? Any best practices?
scottyyyc
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November 18th, 2011 06:00
A bit of a follow up question on ASM/ME then, as it relates to your comment. ASM/ME claims to be able to do 'brick level' recovery, but from what I've seen, it's more or less a matter of mounting the entire database to a recovery volume, and restoring in what seems to be more traditional methods. Personally, I wouldn't call mounting the entire database to a recovery group 'brick level'. I'm not doubting the ease and power of ASM/ME, but are there other recovery options that might be a little closer to 'brick level' (i.e. individual message recovery)? 9 times out of 10 it's simply a matter of people accidentally deleting individual messages or folders, and the quick recovery thereof.