RAID Setup Windows Server Standard 2016

[itnwt88]

NEEDING INPUT ON RAID CONFIG/SETUP. WHAT WOULD BE THE BEST RAID SETUP ON NEW WINDOWS SERVER 2016 STANDARD? I HAVE LISTED BELOW THE BASIC SETUP AND USE OF WHAT THE SERVER WILL DO.

- SERVER FOR SMALL COMPANY- LOWER BUDGET

- SERVER REALLY ONLY HAS 3 JOBS

1. RUN EXCHANGE SERVER

2. STORE/SHARE COMPANY DATA(DOCS/PROGRAMS/FILES)

3. HOST QUICKBOOKS COMPANY FILE

I HAVE SET UP RAID MANY TIMES OVER THE YEARS BUT JUST WANT INPUT ON RAID SETUP ON SERVER. I HAD TRIED RAID 5 BUT I HAD 2 DRIVES FAIL IN FIRST YEAR AND A HALF AND SECOND BY 2 YEARS. THE SERVER DOESN'T REALLY HANDLE MUCH COMPARED TO MOST COMPANY SERVERS BUT WANT THE BEST PERFORMANCE WITH A SMALLER BUDGET COMPARED TO LARGER COMPANIES. SOME TELL ME RUN RAID 1 AND OTHERS SAY RUN RAID 5, OTHERS HAVE TOLD ME TO RUND RAID 0 OR RAID 1 WITH TWO 500GB SSD AND THEN HAVE 3 DRIVES ON RAID 5 FOR THE COMAPANY DATA DRIVE. THOUGHTS?

 

[faalin]

We run our server OS on 2 300GB raid 1 drives, Then run a bunch of VM's off 8 1.2TB raid 5 drive. Server 2016 Data center.

With WINDOWS SERVER 2016 STANDARD you can install the OS and then run 2 VM's that will handle your exchange server and DOCS/PROGRAMS/FILES/quickbooks

 

[Snipergod87]

WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT US? DO NOT USE RAID 5 ANYMORE YOU ARE NOT PROTECTED FROM URE'S EITHER RAID 1, RAID 10, OR RAID 6, AND DON'T FORGET TO HAVE BACKUPS DONE ON A SEPARATE DEVICE

 

[Alabalcho]

@itnwt88, as previous poster said - don't use CAPS ONLY! It is considered yelling, and makes for very difficult reading.

Second - as you have discovered, RAID is not a replacement for (timely) backup, it is just a way to ensure you can still work after a drive failure.

My personal recommendation: Get a small drive for OS (keep it stand-alone, you'll recover easier that way), and run RAID 1 for your data.

 

[Snipergod87]

Also if making a RAID array, buy disks designed for being in array, not cheapo WD Blue's or Seagate desktop drives, get something along the lines of either a NAS rated drive (WD Red's, Seagate Ironwolfs, etc or an enterprise drive.