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Obsolete Releases => SME Server 8.x => Topic started by: Joeg1484 on March 10, 2013, 08:23:23 PM

Title: Expert disk partitioning during setup
Post by: Joeg1484 on March 10, 2013, 08:23:23 PM
Hi All,

Just have an initial question while trying to install.

It has been a while since I have use SME server and I would like to give it a try again for our office.

I have 3 hard drives in my server. One 500 gig and 2x 1.5tb drives. I would like to install the base OS on the 500gig drive and have the 2x 1.5tb drives mirrored and used for data (I assume /home?)

Is this possible with the installer, or should I just install initially on the 500gig disk and then add the mirror later on after the install and mount /home(?) to the new mirror?

Also, is all the data stored in /home, like mail, etc... From the documentation, it appears that the ibays are in home.

Thanks for helping a noob :).

Joe
Title: Re: Expert disk partitioning during setup
Post by: TerryF on March 10, 2013, 10:34:29 PM
Quote from: Joeg1484 on March 10, 2013, 08:23:23 PM
Is this possible with the installer,

Not that I am aware.

Quote
should I just install initially on the 500gig disk and then add the mirror later on after the install and mount /home(?) to the new mirror?

That would be the way to do it. See http://wiki.contribs.org/AddExtraHardDisk

Quote
Also, is all the data stored in /home, like mail, etc... From the documentation, it appears that the ibays are in home.

Yes
Title: Re: Expert disk partitioning during setup
Post by: Joeg1484 on March 10, 2013, 10:47:39 PM
Quote from: TerryF on March 10, 2013, 10:34:29 PM
Not that I am aware.

That would be the way to do it. See http://wiki.contribs.org/AddExtraHardDisk

Yes

Awesome, thanks for the info!

I'm testing in an ESXi guest at the moment, so hopefully, once I learn how things work, I will try it out on my hardware.

Thanks again!

Joe
Title: Re: Expert disk partitioning during setup
Post by: TerryF on March 10, 2013, 11:21:20 PM
Be sure to have a good read of that wiki section, there can be gotchas with that drive scenario, and to me it would be prudent to setup a Raid1 with 2+ disks as the OS drive.
Title: Re: Expert disk partitioning during setup
Post by: Joeg1484 on March 10, 2013, 11:25:17 PM
Quote from: TerryF on March 10, 2013, 11:21:20 PM
Be sure to have a good read of that wiki section, there can be gotchas with that drive scenario, and to me it would be prudent to setup a Raid1 with 2+ disks as the OS drive.

Yeah, I was looking at that some... I might get rid of the 500GIG drive... Seems pointless to have that as an OS drive seeing as the OS would not take up much space.

I will probably just mirror the 2 drives as the whole setup. This way, the install will "Just work" with what is there and I don't have to do any after install work.

Thanks!
Joe
Title: Re: Expert disk partitioning during setup
Post by: TerryF on March 10, 2013, 11:38:45 PM
Don't get me wrong, I use that scenario, 2x500gb in a Raid1, 2 x 1tb mounted to iBays.

Have also played with a 120gb ssd as the OS and 2+ HDs in a Raid1 as iBays..

All have gotchas as explained in the wiki article.
Title: Re: Expert disk partitioning during setup
Post by: purvis on March 11, 2013, 12:00:03 AM
1 OS drive and 2 raid1 drives increases your drive failure chances.

I am gradually learning that  2 serves may be better than 1 in a lot of cases where a file server is needed in production.