American Megatrends StorTrends 3200i User manual

ESRP Storage Program
AMI StorTrends 3200i-iTX 2.7(600 User) iSCSI
Storage Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
Tested with: ESRP –Storage Version 2.1
Tested Date: September 24, 2008
American Megatrends Inc., (AMI)
5555 Oakbrook Parkway
Suite 200
Norcross, GA 30093
770.246.8600
www.ami.com

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Table of Content
Content ............................................................................................ 2
Overview............................................................................................. 3
Disclaimer ........................................................................................... 3
Features.............................................................................................. 3
Solution Description.............................................................................. 8
Tested Deployment ...........................................................................14
Simulated Exchange Configuration: ..................................................14
Primary Storage Hardware ..............................................................14
Primary Storage Software ...............................................................15
Primary Storage Disk Configuration (Mailbox Store Disks)...................15
Primary Storage Disk Configuration (Transactional Log Disks) .............15
Streaming Backup ............................................................................16
Disk Configuration (Streaming Backup to disk) ..................................16
Exchange Best Practices .......................................................................16
Core Storage Best Practices ..................................................................16
Backup strategy ...............................................................................19
Test result summary .........................................................................21
Reliability ........................................................................................21
Primary Storage Performance Results..................................................21
Streaming Backup/Recovery Performance............................................22
Database Read-only Performance.....................................................22
Log Read-only Performance.............................................................22
Backup to disk Performance ............................................................23
Conclusion..........................................................................................23
Contact for Additional Information .........................................................23

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Overview
This document provides information on the AMI StorTrends IP-SAN 3200i
iSCSI storage solution for Microsoft Exchange Server, based the Microsoft
Exchange Solution Reviewed Program (ESRP) –Storage program*. For any
questions or comments regarding the contents of this document, see the
Contact Information Section.
*The ESRP –Storage program was developed by Microsoft Corporation to
provide a common storage testing framework for vendors to provide
information on its storage solutions for Microsoft Exchange Server software.
For more details on the Microsoft ESRP –Storage program, please click
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2007/esrp.mspx
Disclaimer
This document has been produced independently of Microsoft Corporation.
Microsoft Corporation expressly disclaims responsibility for, and makes no
warranty, express or implied, with respect to, the accuracy of the contents of
this document.
The information contained in this document represents the current view of
American Megatrends Inc. on the issues discussed as of the date of
publication. Due to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted
to be a commitment on the part of American Megatrends, and American
Megatrends cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented
after the date of publication.
Features
AMI‟s StorTrends storage appliances are designed for both Small and Medium
Businesses (SMBs) and enterprise-level customers seeking a cost-effective
and scalable iSCSI storage appliance.The StorTrends family of storage
appliances from AMI features storage appliances with a difference; with a
single appliance, an organization can address the entire storage
requirements of today‟s increasingly complex IT storage environments. These
appliances incorporate a range of storage technologies that can be configured
to address the wide variety of storage challenges facing SMBs. Moreover,
StorTrends storage appliances are easy to use and deploy. Setting one up is
a snap; it is a wholly intuitive system that packs enterprise-class features
normally found only in high-end expensive storage systems. It solves many
day-to-day storage problems.
Some of the “Everyday Storage Situations Made Simple” with StorTrends
storage appliances includes:

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Storage Consolidation
Avoid storage islands, achieve a dramatic improvement in utilization of
storage capacity, and reduce storage management costs
Both file and block storage supported in a single IP-SAN appliance
Utilizes the iSCSI protocol, leveraging existing Ethernet infrastructure
reducing cost
Utilizes both Standard SATA and SAS drives
Hardware uses commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) standard hardware,
lower costs and the latest in hardware technologies
Centralized management using ManageTrends™
Back-up and Restore
With the StorTrends IP-SAN solution, users can backup from a central
storage pool, eliminating or reducing the backup window. Backup and restore
using the snapshot functionality found in StorTrends iTX saves time and
increases productivity while providing better end-to-end data protection.
Simplify back up and restore by deploying disk-to-disk back up, taking
advantage of falling disk prices and increasing disk capacities and
spindle performance, while also allowing use of tape backups where
necessary
With StorTrends appliances, administrators can simplify backup while
ensuring faster more reliable restorations, to:
Shrink or eliminate backup windows without affecting performance
Improve Recovery Point Objectives while decreasing Recovery Time
Objectives
Minimize system and application downtime by seamlessly and non-
disruptively creating scheduled snapshots.
Eliminate performance degradation while taking snapshots.
Reduce, if not eliminate, tape restores. Any snapshot can be instantly
restored, in any order, down to a 1-minute granularity.
Ensure faster and more reliable restores
Enable truly corporate LAN-Free backups through the use of
transportable snapshots
Simplify growth and dispersed data management through the
consolidation of multiple remote locations to one D2D backup
repository
Simplify security while increasing availability
Continuous Data Protection
StorTrends iTX data storage software allows you to take snapshots of your
data on almost a continuous basis, providing you with virtual continuous data
protection, or “near-CDP”. StorTrends‟ Advanced Snapshot capability
features Redirect-on-Write (ROW) technology with near-zero degradation
when writing or rolling back snapshots. Administrators can schedule up to
1,024 read-write and 1,024 read-only snapshots per volume, and up to

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2,048 snapshots per box. A maximum of 64 volumes per appliance is
supported.
SAN snapshots are supported through Microsoft® VSS snapshot technology,
or by specific agents for application servers such Exchange Server and
Oracle. Microsoft® VSSbased snapshots also support SQL Server and agent-
less LAN-free backup.
The Key advantages of StorTrends snapshots are:
Minimal performance degradation when snapshots are enabled
Easy, quick rollback to any snapshot
With some of the most advanced snapshot capability in the industry
Disaster Recovery
Remote replication of backup data protects data against disasters and site
failures. Every StorTrends IP-SAN Appliance Includes Replication With
storage consolidated on StorTrends IP-SAN storage appliances, disaster
recovery is now affordable, fast, and simple. No expensive channel extension
equipment, add-on software, or costly staff training is needed - instead,
leverage your existing investment in WAN equipment and IT staff for reduced
data protection costs. Our advanced data replication capability, standard in
each preinstalled StorTrends appliance, provides point-in-time periodic
replication to multiple remote sites. This method, easy to set up and operate,
delivers multiple restore points and application-consistent copies that can be
restored in minutes.
High Availability
A high availability configuration can be created with a replicated secondary
appliance. StorTrends allows users to configure two StorTrends iTX units in a
primary / secondary configuration, so that data in the primary unit is
replicated to the secondary. Replication is done on a per-volume basis,
making it is possible for one unit to serve as the primary for one volume, and
the secondary unit to serve as the primary for another, improving the
utilization of both servers.
If the connection to the primary unit, or the Primary unit itself, fails, the
application server is immediately serviced by the secondary, which contains
up-to-date replicated data. Failover from the primary to the secondary is
automatic and transparent.
The key benefits of AMI‟s High Availability solution:
ZERO downtime of access to data, even if appliance fails completely
ZERO RTO and ZERO RPO (instant)

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Archiving
StorTrends storage appliances provide an affordable, easy-to-use, self-
managing archiving solution, while also fulfilling your primary storage needs.
Our automated iSCSI IP-SAN includes tiering and pooling capabilities,
allowing you to archive data from a primary, high performing storage pool on
more cost efficient storage that resides in the same SAN. This eases your
operational burden and significantly reduces costs when compared with
traditional online archiving vendors.
Benefits of StorTrends IP-SAN Appliances for Data Archiving:
Tiering and pooling of archived vs. production data
Affordable, easy to set up
Self-managing functionality
Full redundancy provides 99.999% reliability
Easy to scale
Easy Manageability
AMI also offers the ManageTrends™ software for effortless monitoring and
control of the StorTrends appliance. ManageTrends™ simplifies configuration
and set-up, and makes quick work of normally complex, time consuming
tasks. Using StorTrends storage appliances to centralize storage and
ManageTrends for centralized management of data not only reduces
hardware and operating costs, but also reduces the risk of having
compromised or redundant information. StorTrends uses iSCSI technology,
thereby allowing existing network personnel manage the new storage
environment. There is no need for extensive additional training or new
storage administrators as with typical FC SAN environments.
Deployment Cost & Licensing
A key design principle is to include advanced functionality in all StorTrends
systems as a single license with no complicated and confusing multiple
licensing schemes. The result is a complete solution with built-in intelligence
and advanced features. All the advanced technology features described
above are standard on each system and require no additional software,
licenses, or cost.
For customers who are implementing networked storage for the first time and
are considering iSCSI, the StorTrends iSCSI array provides scalable iSCSI
storage as well as the flexibility and investment protection.

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Highlights
Comes with 4, 8 or 16 TB IP-SAN & NAS storage appliance
16 Hot-swappable SAS/SATA Drives
Expandable with JBOD support
Information Lifecycle Management
Thin Provisioning
WDS (WAN-optimization Data Service)
Continuous Data Protection (CDP)
Volume Replication
- Synchronous
- Asynchronous
- Snapshot-assisted
- Journal-assisted
Advanced Snapshot
- Redirect on Write (ROW)
- Up to 1024 snapshots (R/O and R/W) per volume
- Up to 2048 snapshots per box
- Snapshot scheduling for SAN & NAS
- Rollback from any snapshot
- Random snapshot deletion
Hardware RAID support:
RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 10+N, 50, 60
Online capacity expansion, RAID level migration
High Availability (HA) Grouping
- Load Balancing
- Active / Active Configuration
Universal UPS Support
Network Teaming
Encryption
Up to 16 iSNS servers are supported
Compatible with MS iSNS Server v3.0 and later
iSNS client supporting Draft 22 of iSNS specification Security
ACL security implementation supports: Local users,
Windows® NT/2000 Domain users, Windows® 2003
Active Directory users, NIS Domain users
iSCSI Qualified Name (iqn) format
Enable/Disable individual network ports for iSCSI traffic
iSCSI target supporting iSCSI RFC 3720
iSCSI error recovery level 0, 1 and 2
Maximum of 4 connections per session
Multiple levels of authentication:
Mutual CHAP, user name/password CHAP authentication iSCSI
initiator WWN name
iSCSI Portal Tag configuration from UI
View iSCSI data and error statistics

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Starting Microsoft Windows 2003, Microsoft has come up with several new
tools and technologies catered towards empowering iSCSI and Storage
Consolidation. These include:
VSS: Transportable shadow copy for data protection and recoverability
VDS (Simple SAN Initiative): Aimed towards ease of manageability
Microsoft iSCSI initiator: This enables block over IP.
DPM: For backup and DR
SAN Boot (Win boot/i): For server consolidation and blade servers.
Clustering over iSCSI: Aimed at high availability and redundancy
MPIO: For performance, and transport redundancy.
The StorTrends 3200i delivers tiered storage that allows customers to
provide the right level of performance to the right applications. The
combination of StorTrends iTX data storage software and StorTrends storage
appliances encompass a powerful solution to address the main issues facing
SMBs and enterprises today, such as continual, exploding data growth and
the general transition away from Direct Attached Storage (DAS). In addition,
StorTrends products are easy to implement and maintain, and offer
excellent TOC (Total Operating Cost) in comparison with Fibre Channel and
other IP-Storage solutions currently in the market.
AMI‟s StorTrends delivers and interoperates with all the above technologies
of Microsoft and this document describes an approach that can be used to
configure Exchange Solutions around AMI‟s StorTrends IP-SAN series (1300i,
2200i, 3200i) storage systems.
The performance results and best practices discussed in this document
provide tested guidelines for configuring the StorTrends 3200i for a high-
performance Exchange environment. For this solution, a Stortrends 3200i
storage solution for Microsoft Exchange Server was used and configured for
600 Exchange 2007 users.
Solution Description
The following sections outline the hardware and software environment that
was used to run the ESRP tests, as well as the targeted customer for which
the solution was designed.
The StorTrends 3200i –Hardware Raid iSCSI Storage Array is a WHQL
qualified storage device that is listed in the Windows Server Catalog as
follows:
http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/results.aspx?&bCatID=1511&cpID=1
1005&avc=10&ava=0&avq=0&OR=1&PGS=25&ready=0

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Setup
Hardware and Software Configuration
The storage used in the tests includes:
• Single StorTrends 3200i –iSCSI Array with a single storage controller and
an integrated 16 disk-array enclosure (DAE.
Sizing and configuring storage for use with Microsoft Exchange Server is a
complicated process, driven by many variables and factors, which vary from
one organization to another.
The sizing method described in this ESRP submission is known as the
“building block,”which is used to simplify sizing and configuration when using
a low number of disks to ensure the highest performance while remaining
fault tolerant. This unit of measure (or building block) is designed to be
scalable and expandable into larger building block deployments - based on
customer I/O and latency requirements.
The following configuration tables and diagram illustrates the building block
layout for this ESRP submission.
Dell R905 Blade Server
Microsoft Exchange
JetStress
AMI StorTrends 3200i
IP-SAN iSCSI storage
hosting MS Exchange
Data
NetGear 1Gbps
Gig switch
NetGear 1Gbps
Gig switch
AMI StorTrends iSCSI Setup for Microsoft Exchange ESRP
Testing

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Network configuration
[1 Mbps Gigabit network]
Machine
nic1 ip
nic2 ip
JetStress Host
192.168.11.61
192.168.10.61
Storage Server
192.168.11.47
192.168.10.47
Raid configuration
[Hardware RAID controller]
Container
Raid level
no of disks
disk capacity
No of spares
Data
10
8
500 GB
1
Log
1
2
500 GB
1
Backup
5
3
500 GB
1
iSCSI Volume/LUN Configuration
Volume Name
Volume size
target name
Volume
Write Cache Option
Disk
Cache Option
Volume
Read Cache Option
data
300 GB
Datatgt
WriteBack
Direct
Read None
log
10 GB
Logtgt
WriteBack
Direct
Read None
backup
400 GB
Backuptgt
WriteBack
Direct
Read None
Exchange JetStress Configuration
Users
Size
(MB)
Database
Size (GB)
IOPS
/User
Thread
Count
600
200
120
0.45
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Storage Array Configuration
[single storage controller iSCSI Array]
Database
Store
File
System
Disk Settings
Storage Controller settings
Block
Size
(K)
Raid
Level
No.of
Disks
Disk
Type
Disk
Speed
(rpm)
Disk
Cache
Option
Memory
size
(GB)
Cache
Size
(M)
Chunk
Size
(K)
Write
Cache
Option
Read
Cache
Option
Data
4
10
8
SATA
7200
Disabled
2
128
64
Writeback
Disabled
Log
4
1
2
SATA
7200
Disabled
64
Writeback
Disabled

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Configuration Diagram
For transaction mailbox DATA store 1 RAID 10 group, for LOG store 1 RAID
1 group , for BACKUP store 1 RAID 5 that provides performance and
capacity.1 dedicated spare disk to each of the group provides adequate
protection against single disk failure.
RAID Disk Group 1: RAID10 8 Disk Drives, 500GB SATA, 7200 RPM
RAID Disk Group 2: RAID1 2 Disk Drives, 500GB SATA, 7200 RPM
RAID Disk Group 3: RAID 5 3 Disk Drives, 500GB SATA, 7200 RPM
Dell R905,Windows 2003 server x64bit
Microsoft Exchange Jetstress 2007
600 Users –200MB Mailbox - 0.45 IOPS
StorTrends 3200i, iTX 2.7 (single storage controller)
Data LUN
300 GB
8 DISKS
1 SPARE
Log LUN
10 GB
2 DISKS
1 SPARE
Backup LUN
400 GB
3 DISKS
1 SPARE
NIC
1
NIC
2
NIC
2
NIC
1
Multi Pathing I/O
Gigabit
Switches
iSCSI Block Protocol Service
RAID 10
NIC 2
RAID 5
NIC 2
RAID 1
NIC 2
AMI StorTrends 3200i iSCSI Storage Configuration for ESRP
Testing

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Three Virtual Disks (LUNs) 1 each for mailbox, log and backup from the
corresponding RAID Disk groups , are created:
Virtual Disk 1: Disk Group 1 Databases 300GB
Virtual Disk 2: Disk Group 2 Transaction Logs 10GB
Virtual Disk 3: Disk Group 3 Backup to Disk 400GB
A number of key factors must be addressed to support a successful and
efficient deployment of Microsoft Exchange. Indeed, the initial design and
planning phase is the most critical phase of deploying a high-performance
and fault-tolerant Exchange Server environment.
The type of server hardware, memory requirement, network infrastructure,
Active Directory design, recovery requirements, and client usage profiles are
all essential elements of the planning phase.
Since Microsoft Exchange is an I/O intensive application that is extremely
sensitive to I/O latency, configuring the storage subsystem in an optimal
manner is perhaps the most critical of these several factors that an Exchange
deployment must address.
The storage subsystem can sometimes be a complex area to understand and
can require extensive domain expertise to get the best out of it. A proper
understanding and sizing of the storage subsystem with use of vendor
specified best practice guidelines can thus help alleviate one of the most
critical and common reasons for sub-optimal Exchange performance.
This solution provides tested best practices to help Exchange administrators
design an optimal Exchange deployment based around the StorTrends 3200i
( IP-SAN iSCSI family).The solution addresses the SMB space targeting up to
600-user Exchange deployments along with disk-to-disk backup capability.
Test environment
The testing discussed in this report covers three major aspects critical to
Exchange stability and performance including the following:
• 24 Hour Stress Test – measures the longer term stability of the Exchange
infrastructure running under a load for a full 24-hour day‟s duration.
• 2 Hour Performance Test – provides performance under a heavy load for a
shorter time frame.
• Backup performance – backup-to-disk testing measures the time required
to perform streaming Exchange backups.

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Each of these three test points is critical in validating a storage subsystem for
a high performing, stable Exchange environment.
Together, these three tests help validate a storage subsystem for overall
high performance, stability, and an optimal Exchange environment.
Targeted customer profile
This solution is intended for small- and medium-sized businesses hosting 600
Exchange mailboxes. The configuration used for testing is as below:
• A single Exchange server.
•600 users per server.
•0.45 IOPs per user
• 1 storage group
•200MB User Mailbox size
• Disk-to-Disk backup strategy.
The ESRP-Storage program focuses on storage solution testing to address
performance and reliability issues with storage design. However, storage is
not the only factor to take into consideration when designing a scale up
Exchange solution. Other factors which affect the server scalability are:
server processor utilization, server physical and virtual memory limitations,
resource requirements for other applications, directory and network service
latencies, network infrastructure limitations, replication and recovery
requirements, and client usage profiles. All these factors are beyond the
scope for ESRP-Storage. Therefore, the number of mailboxes hosted per
server as part of the tested configuration may not necessarily be viable for
some customer deployment.
For more information on identifying and addressing performance
bottlenecks in an Exchange system, please refer to Microsoft's
Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Server Performance, available at
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb397229.aspx

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Tested Deployment
The following tables summarize the testing environment:
Simulated Exchange Configuration:
Number of Exchange mailboxes simulated
600
Number of hosts
1
Number of mailboxes/host
600
Number of storage groups/host
1
Number of mailbox stores/storage group
1
Number of mailboxes/mailbox store
1
Number of mailbox store LUNs/storage
group
1 database LUN , 1 log LUN and
1 Backup LUN.
Simulated profile: I/O‟s per second per
mailbox (IOPS, include 20% headroom)
0.45
Database LUN size
300
Log LUN size
10
Backup LUN size/storage group
400
Total database size for performance
testing
120 GB
% storage capacity used by Exchange
database**
40 %
**Storage performance characteristics change based on the
percentage utilization of the individual disks. Tests that use a small
percentage of the storage (~25%) may exhibit reduced throughput if
the storage capacity utilization is significantly increased beyond what
is tested in this paper.
Primary Storage Hardware
Storage Connectivity (Fiber Channel,
SAS, SATA, iSCSI)
ISCSI
Storage model and OS/firmware
revision
StorTrends 3200i
iTX 2.7
Storage cache
128 M (Adaptable/Dynamic)
Number of storage controllers
1
Number of storage ports
2
Maximum bandwidth of storage
connectivity to host
2 * 1 Gbps Ethernet
Switch type/model/firmware revision
NetGear JGS516
HBA model and firmware
Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator 2.0
build 3497
BroadCom BCM57095 NetXtreme II
GigE (NDIS VBD CLIENT)
Number of HBA‟s/host
2
Host server type
Dell PowerEdge blade D905
Quad-Core AMD Opteron Processor

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8354
2.20 GHz
8 Gb RAM
Total number of disks tested in
solution
16
Maximum number of spindles can be
hosted in the storage
16 disks in Internal Enclosure
Expandable up to 64 disks with
External JBODs
Primary Storage Software
HBA driver
Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator 2.0
build 3497
HBA QueueTarget Setting
N/A
HBA QueueDepth Setting
N/A
Multi-Pathing
Microsoft MPIO
Round robin Load Balancing / Failover
2 network paths for IO
Host OS
Windows 2003 server Enterprise x64
Edition Service Pack1
ESE.dll file version
08.01.0240.005
Replication solution
name/version
N/A
Primary Storage Disk Configuration (Mailbox Store Disks)
Disk type, speed and firmware
revision
SATA 3Gbps
7200 RPM
Seagate Barracuda Rev.SN04
Raw capacity per disk (GB)
465 GB
Number of physical disks in test
8 + (1 spare)
total raw storage capacity (GB)
1858.92 GB
Disk slice size (GB)
N/A
Number of slices per LUN or number
of disks per LUN
N/A
Raid level
RAID 10 at the storage system
Total formatted capacity
299 GB
Storage capacity utilization
299/1858.92
Database capacity utilization
58.9/1858.92
Primary Storage Disk Configuration (Transactional Log Disks)
Disk type, speed and firmware
revision
SATA 3Gbps
7200 RPM
Seagate Barracuda Rev.SN04
Raw capacity per disk (GB)
465 GB

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Number of Spindles in test
2 + (1 spare)
total raw storage capacity (GB)
461.80 GB
Disk slice size (GB)
N/A
Number of slices per LUN or number
of disks per LUN
N/A
Raid level
RAID 1 at the storage system
Total formatted capacity
9.99 GB
Streaming Backup
Disk Configuration (Streaming Backup to disk)
Disk type, speed and firmware
revision
SATA 3Gbps
7200 RPM
Seagate Barracuda Rev.SN04
Raw capacity per disk (GB)
465 GB
Number of spindles in test
3 + (1 spare)
total raw storage capacity (GB)
929.46 GB
Disk slice size (GB)
N/A
Number of slices per LUN or number
of disks per LUN
N/A
Raid level
RAID 5 at the storage system
Total formatted capacity
399 GB
Exchange Best Practices
Exchange server is a disk-intensive application. Based on the testing run
using the ESRP framework, we would recommend the following to improve
the storage performance.
For Exchange 2007 best practices on storage design, please visit
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124518.aspx
Core Storage Best Practices
In a MS Exchange environment where thousands of email transactions
happen in the blink of an eye, performance becomes paramount. This calls
for a very intricate and efficient system design. Disk subsystem bottlenecks
cause more performance problems than server side CPU or RAM deficiencies.
In spite of having the best and fastest H/W an improper database layout may
render the system sluggish and unusable. It is imperative to watch the I/O
latencies, and average read or writes latencies should be kept under 20ms.
Latencies in excess of 50ms lasting over a few seconds are unacceptable in
such environments.

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Based on the tests run using the ESRP –Storage framework, AMI
recommends the following best practices to improve storage performance:
Consider performance before capacity: RAID10 configurations are
recommended for performance and fault-tolerance mirroring
(multiples of 2) RAID 5 configurations with more drives in an array
are to be avoided for key volumes that has small random writes. Log
devices are essentially sequentially written. Write back caching is
very helpful here as it reduces latencies from 20ms to 2ms.
StorTrends iTX with an advanced cache module offers excellent
performance benefits.
Invest in high performance disks and spindles:It is imperative to
make sure that volumes are distributed across multiple spindles.
StorTrends iTX software houses RAIDed logical drives in containers
from where capacity is allotted to various volumes. Intelligent
provisioning strategies allow the I/Os to be appropriately striped
across various logical drives to ensure leadership in performance.
I/O alignment:In general MS Exchange I/Os are predominantly 4K
in size. It is therefore important to ensure that these logical
transaction I/Os are not split into different spindles. Splitting
increases physical I/Os and therefore degrades performance. By
default Windows aligns the partition to 63rd sector. This implies that
one out of every 16 I/OS will be split, causing performance penalty.
It is advisable to use Microsoft tool diskpart to align the volumes to
4k alignment. “diskpart –i 1” command will ensure this alignment.
Isolate network traffic:Let LAN traffic live on LAN and SAN traffic
on SAN network. Isolate the Microsoft Exchange database workload
from other I/O intensive applications or workloads. This ensures the
highest levels of performance for Microsoft Exchange and makes
troubleshooting efforts easier in the event of a disk-related
Microsoft Exchange performance issue.
Multiple Paths: With multiple NICs, Microsoft MPIO should be
enabled on Exchange servers to ensure highly-available SAN
connections and load-balancing & failover paths.
Network switching:For best results, use non-blocking Gigabit
Ethernet switches that support both Jumbo Frames and Flow
Control.
Application Isolation: Do not install Exchange server on a Domain
Controller or ADS Server.It is best to ensure application isolation
and thereby improving performance.

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Optimize Mailbox Layout:It is best to limit the no. of critical mail
stores/mailboxes per server. Encourage separation of mail stores on
separate servers. Separate Logs and mail stores on different
volumes. Here are some of the database volume characteristics with
I/O patterns:
Jet database (.edb): This is used to hold all data submitted by
MAPI clients. Typical I/O profile is 4K random I/O with read write
mix.
Streaming database (.stm): Stores attachments. Typical I/O
profile is 8K read/write with a mix of sequential and random load.
Transaction Log Files (.log): All changes to database are first
committed to this file. This volume has 100% sequential writes
during normal operations and 100 percent sequential reads
during recovery.
It is better to use MS Basic disks (this is also supported by iSCSI
S/W initiator) with NTFS partition and allocation unit of 4K. It
must be noted that diskpart can be used to extend partition and
file system size automatically and online.
StorTrends iTX stack with a myriad of features aimed at performance
monitoring and tuning offers the best storage solution. StorTrends iTX stack
also has built in automatic performance tuning, load balancing and I/O
plugging capabilities enabling it to yield extremely high I/O performance. In
such deployments, to guard against data loss, snapshots are extensively
used. The special Redirect on write algorithm used by iTX stack gives it a
differentiating edge over the much used Copy on write architectures
employed by competition. In other architectures, with every new snapshot
taken the metadata writes increase leading to drop of I/O performance. The
ability to create multiple snapshots in iTX using delta snap table layout
ensures that there is no additional overhead incurred when many snapshots
are active.
Refer to MS Guidelines:
See the following Microsoft documentation for network storage-based
Exchange Mailstore and replication best practices and support criteria:
TcpAckFrequency = 1 for each iSCSI connection:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328890.
Deployment Guidelines for Data Replication:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/guides/
E2k3DataRepl/bedf62a9-dff7-49a8-bd27-b2f1c46d5651.mspx
Multi-site data replication support for Exchange:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=895847

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Backup strategy
This solution used RAID 5 for the backup-to-disk LUNs in order to maximize
space and provide single disk failure protection.
In today‟s information-centric world, any loss of data could incur heavy
financial penalties leave alone other inconveniences caused. Regularly
saving and protecting data has become mandatory and is no longer a luxury.
StorTrends iTX stack‟s space and performance efficient Redirect on Write
snapshots literally allow maintaining hundreds of low latency Point-in-Time
snapped images of volumes. VSS Hardware provider along with scheduled
snapshots provides a very tight integration with Exchange server. The
architectural excellence of iTX ensures that there is no additional degradation
with the usage of multiple snapshots.
Provision tracking feature of iTX ensures that the snapshots are extremely
space efficient. StorTrends iTX VSS scheduler allows up to 8 different
snapshot schedules. For example one can have 60 snapshots minutes apart,
24 hourly snapshots, 30 daily snapshots and 24 monthly snapshots. Figure 5
shows how with ease such schedules can be defined. A compaction module
running in the background recaptures space released by deleted snapshots
and provisions them back to the free storage pool. There is no a-priori
knowledge necessary about the space to be provisioned for snapshots. Thin
provisioning architecture automatically and intelligently manages all these
behind the scenes. Coupled with this, space tracking and alerting agent
inside the stack notifies the administrator should there be any need.
Scheduling Multi-level Snapshots through ManageTrends

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These snapshots also allow regular scheduled backups to tapes for archival
purposes. With the enhancements in Exchange 2003 and the wealth of
recovery features provided in iTX, recovery of mail store has become very
easy. The main benefit here is that there is no need for a spare disaster
recovery server in its own Active Directory forest to recover a single mailbox
or single mailbox store, as was required in Exchange 2000. The Recovery
Storage Group (RSG) is a new type of storage group in Exchange 2003 that
essentially allows mounting a copy of a mailbox store onto the running
production Exchange 2003 server. Data can be recovered within the restored
mailbox store whilst the current store is still running. Use of the RSG on a
production server does not interfere with the users as the RSG is logically
isolated; users cannot log into it, and mail cannot be delivered to it.
Now let us consider some common recovery scenarios. Let us assume that
some important mails have been accidentally deleted and purged from the
production server.
Open up „Flashback‟ and the recovery wizard will guide you through to the
appropriate snapped image. Once selected, this will create a writable version
of the snapshot which can be connected to the Recovery Storage group on
the same server.
"Flashback" - Recovery Wizard