[SOLVED] New install RAID level? (400 users) + HSM SAN

[jason]

About to install the latest network version 5.0.6GA. I have a Dell 2900 with 8 350GB drives, 16GB RAM, dual QuadCore Procs and RHEL 5x64 OS as the system.

Today I setup RAID 5 with 2 hot spares, planning for RHEL install tomorrow, but tonight I read RAID 5 not recomended over 100 users. I will have 400 users. The doc did not 'recommend' over 100 RAID config. What to do now, 10, or is 5 ok?

Also, I have a 4TB EMC fiber HBA connected SAN to setup for backend storage for HSM (not sure how that works yet, but still reading up on this). I am assuming RHEL will se this as another volume, so RAID 5 it for the HSM storage, or RAID 10, or???

Please advise..... I would like to be installing Zimbra by the weekend, but need the comfort of proper storage arrays.

[phoenix]

You should use RAID10 for best performance.

[jason]

thank you Bill for answering, I value your input ..... I now know what i will be doing later today... bye to raid 5 and hello raid 10... quick one, on my 2nd volume HSM 4TB NAS backend for older emails... seems as this is not as intensive, so can i go raid 5 to get a few more GB's of space, or 10 again? If old email is not accessed that much, then would raid 5 be ok or do you recommend 10 again?

final.... does HSM store older emails in backend storage in a mysql db, or in a file structure... just curious, i haven't read far enough to see how hsm does this?

[phoenix]

Anything that has low write activity should be OK with RAID5, it's the write performance that would kill you in a production environment. I don't know if you want to use RAID5 for your older email and keep an eye on performance, you could always change RAID levels later if you see any bottleneck.

[Klug]

RAID5 on SATA2 harddrives (7200RPM) is quite "standard" for HSM and backup partitions.

Zimbra's "storage worksheet" uses this kind of setup.