Server partitions - WHY?

[Drjones]

I get a call this morning from one of my attorney's offices that email is down. They have their own Exchange in-house.

Long story short, the issue seems to have been caused by the C: partition on the server filling up. I cleared some space & resolved the problem, but we're gonna have to extend the size of the partition within a week or two.

WHY are servers usually partitioned from the factory, and WHY are the partitions so danged SMALL?? It's just ASKING for trouble in the not-to-distant future...

What a pain.

[BigDog[RE]]

You are supposed to install the os on the first partition and apps on the larger one. In your clients case, if you don't want to mess around with re-partitioning, you can move the Exchange Information store to another partition/local drive, and that will free up some room!

Personally I hate the way servers come partitioned from the factory, it has caused me a lot of issues in the past.

[JustN]

Not knowing the specifics of your situation... I can say that in all of my server builds, I create a small OS partition (usually 50-75gb) and a larger DATA partition out of the remaining space.

I make sure that only OS related files are stored on the OS partition -- all applications and data are installed to the DATA partition.

Granted, in my case, I generally create the OS partition on a RAID-1 set of drives and then my DATA partition is built across a RAID-5 set of disks (4-5 depending on drive size and count).

There are a myriad of reasons to do this, but I have personally had experience with two:

1. Performance (especially with Exchange and SQL) is increased ten fold in this type of configuration

2. If an OS issue arises and forces a rebuild/reinstall/restore of the OS partition, the DATA partition remains intact and is ready to be returned to service after the OS is back in service. This configuration has the added benefit of reducing the time needed to back up or restore the OS partition.

Hope this helps...

[JK-linux]

Good question. I generally start from scratch with a fresh installation regardless of how a box comes from the factory. Some stuff is best to muscle through to begin with so you don't have trouble later on. You might consider using some sort of sendmail application to send you a text or email when a drive gets to x% free/full.

[sappy13]

we typically always run a raid 10 on our servers for clients. Always with a c drive partition and then a data partition. Word to the wise, if you have to put In a ml150 or any with the b110i raid controller, it won't work with esxi. We just learned that the hard way.

[wct097]

I can't imagine wanting a factory partitioned machine. First thing we do is blow away anything pre-configured and do it ourselves. Not all apps like to be installed on alternative drives, so I prefer OS & apps on the C drive, and data on the second. If it's a SQL server, I'd add another partition on unique drives (not another partition on the same drives) for the log files.

[Linux3]

OK, I'm not a real Windows person but...
The OS should be in it's own partition, 'C' in your case so it's easy to back up and restore quickly.
Plus if you have to rebuild the OS you don't lose your data. Well, with Windows you lose your apps because of that Registry thing but still.

I put the OS on one partition, apps on a second and data on (whatever extras).
If you have one big partition when it goes down how long will it take to restore? Can you make a ghost image that large?
Usually I make the OS and apps raid 1 and the date raid 3 or 5 depending on speed and size of files.

[srhoades]

Exchange database and logs are by default on the Windows partition. Very easy to move.

[Drjones]

Thanks for the posts so far, I guess my bigger gripe is with morons that make the C: partitions so *^%$@$# small...even 75GB is going to get filled up right quick with simple Windows & antivirus updates alone!

Heck, I used to have a 60GB SSD in my freakin' PC and it wasn't big enough for me.....how does anybody expect that tiny space to work for a SERVER.

I fully understand the reasoning behind partitioning, it just needs to be done better.....especially with how freakin' cheap HDs are these days.

[Lou Garou]

Those Exchange logs will eat you up, won't they? :rofl:

[JustN]

As always, YMMV... I just checked 3 of my Win 2008 servers and none of them have a c: drive usage above 42 gb. Infact, my SQL server is only using 21gb of its 73gb primary partition... Now, the FC array attached to that server is a different story.

Sappy- what version of esxi? 4.0 or 4.1?

[sappy13]

Esxi 5.0, the newest version of Hypervisor. We have a server install this weekend and next weekend of SBS 2011, which we were planning to run as a VM. We were originally planning to start doing all of our server installs as vms starting with these, but that will have to wait. Esxi hypervisor only supports hardware raids i beleive. I did some googleing hoping to find a way around it, but was unable to. I was really looking forward to doing it virtual since sometimes Sbs 2011 can be so finicky with the updates and wizards. The other day I had to start the sharepoint wizard in order to get it allow me to make a backup, so after i got the backup created i ran the wizard all the way through to prevent that from happening again. Rebooted and ran psconfig like prompted. Next boot my system was in horrible condition, and had to spend the next hour getting it back to before sharepoint wizard. A simple snapshot woulda saved me a ton of time