How to Partition SBS Hard Drives
This Site Makes NO Recommendations
The subject of how to partition hard drives for SBS has about as many permutations as the number of installations. What most agree on is:
1. You should NEVER use one stand alone drive
2. You should NEVER use RAID0 ( RAID Zero)
After that, the sky is the limit. One of the recurring themes is SBS land is the adoption of the various MS (and others) recommendations for the applications that are included with SBS.
For example: it is often stated that the OS should be on its own drive, That Exchange should be on its own drive, that Exchange Log files should be on their own drive, that SQL data bases files and transaction logs should each have their own drives, etc. If you follow this to its logical conclusion, you can easily arrive at a requirement of 14 separate and distinct drives in an SBS server.
However, SBS does not have the same level of activity that stand alone servers often have. The sweet spot for SBS is less than 60 users, and various stand alone Exchange or SQL servers can have hundreds, or even thousands of users. So there is really no comparison.
Probably the best advice for a entry level SBS is to have two partitions as a minimum, and 6 or so as a maximum. The entry level SBS with two partitions is easily accommodated on two drives in RAID1. The next step would usually be 4 drives in two sets of RAID1, or 5 drives with 2 in RAID1 for the OS and programs, and 3 in RAID5 for the data.
The partitions (volumes in MS speak) on these drives can range from the very simple 2 volumes on 2 drives in RAID1, to as many as 8 volumes to hold various parts of the system. I tend to favor the 2 sets of RAID1 where there is not a great deal of data, and to expand into RAID5 or multiple RAID5 configurations as the amount of data increases.
You also have choices of technology. SCSI is the standard by which all others should be judged. It is being replaced with Serial Attached SCSI, or SAS, and is in competition with Serial Advanced Technology Attachment or SATA. If you chose SATA drives, be sure to chose the "enterprise" or server level, which are meant to be powered on 24/7 and have a mean time between failures similar to that of SCSI and SAS.
None of the above constitutes an endorsement or recommendation of any hard drive scheme or partitioning scheme. As with all things computer, your mileage may vary.
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