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Using a redundant array of independent drives (RAID) is a useful way to increase the fault tolerance of your Exchange 2000 organization.
RAID is a mechanism for storing identical data on multiple disks for redundancy, improved performance, and increased mean time between failures (MTBF). A RAID configuration is one in which part of the physical storage capacity contains redundant information about data stored on the hard disks. The redundant information is either parity information (in the case of a RAID-5 volume), or a complete, separate copy of the data (in the case of a mirrored volume). The redundant information enables data regeneration if one of the disks or the access path fails, or if a sector on the disk cannot be read.
To ensure that your servers running Exchange 2000 continue to function properly in the event of a single disk failure, you can use disk mirroring or disk striping with parity on the hard disks within your Exchange 2000 organization. Disk mirroring and disk striping with parity allow you to create redundant data for the data on your hard disks. Although disk mirroring creates duplicate volumes that can continue functioning if the disk being mirrored fails, disk mirroring does not prevent damaged files (or other file errors) from being copied to mirrored volumes. For this reason, do not use disk mirroring as a substitute for keeping current backups of important data on your servers.
Note When using redundancy techniques such as parity, you sacrifice some hard disk I/O performance for reliability.
Because transaction log files and database files are critical to the operation of a server running Exchange 2000, you can keep the transaction log files and database files of your Exchange 2000 storage group on separate physical drives.
You can also use disk mirroring or disk striping with parity to prevent the loss of a single physical hard disk from causing a portion of your messaging system to fail. For more information about disk mirroring and disk striping with parity, see Windows 2000 Server Help and the technical paper Storage Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=1715.
To implement a RAID configuration, you must use a special set of hard disks designed only for use with RAID configurations. You can also implement a RAID configuration by using the Windows 2000 Disk Management snap-in.
For more information about RAID and other storage solutions for your Exchange 2000 organization, see the technical paper Storage Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=1715.
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