Partition Size on file servers

[Guest]

Hi

How do you size the partitions on your file servers? We run a number of W2000 servers. And since we came from NT 3.51 to NT 4.0 we sized our partitions based on the time, we needed to restore a complete partition from tape and the time it took to run chkdsk. Now with W2000 we are looking for the things that we have to consider.
What partitionssizes do you use on servers that hold users homedirectories and on shared drives?
Thanks
André

 

[Guest]

You seem to have been on the right track with your sizing in Windows NT 4 already.

We have been running with two 1TB arrays that partition and format to 881GB.
This storage is on a Compaq SAN and the servers are Quad PIII Xeons with 4GB of RAM.

We consolidated about 20 servers onto these two, which are clustered.
One volume is for home directories, one is for shared data.
We have approximately 1600 home directories, and approximately 2500 users on the shared data worldwide.

Our only problems have been with CHKDSK, backup/restore, and defrag. CHKDSK can take from 4 to 8 hours on these volumes. Backups take 12-24 hours for an incremental. Full restore takes nearly 72 hours. Defrag analysis takes too long for our Defrag window.

These problems are more due to the amount of data on these volumes (number of files more than size of those files), and the types of files.

After a lot of research and business requirements for 'business continuity' passed down from management, we have come up with about 250GB volumes is on the high side of what we consider safe for volume sizes.

On top of the problems with maintenance and business continuity, about once a week (sometimes more), with the large volumes, we experienced 2022 errors (plenty of info on support site) which caused some clients to disconnect and others to appear hung for up to a minute.

My suggestion to you, is to stick with the smallest partitions you can factoring in growth expectations.

To consolidate partitions into one namespace, consider utilizing DFS from Microsoft or a third party product to do the same as DFS.