Oracle-L: Configuring disks on a Windows 2000 server?

From: Paul Vincent <Paul.Vincent_at_uce.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 02:03:28 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.005031C5.20021114020328@fatcity.com>

Hi all,

A 3rd-party software vendor is coming in to install their application on a new Windows 2000 server. This application uses Oracle, so they'll also be installing Oracle 8.1.7 as part of their setup session. However, they've sent our server/hardware guys the following, specifying how they want the disks configuring on the server:

- - - - "As to the RAID recommendations the issue is that Oracle do not support installations where the redo logs are on any sort of a stripped partition. My recommendation would be to create a mirror pair out of two of the disks. This can be partitioned for the system and the redo logs. The remainder of the disks can be RAID 5. Note that the RAID 5 array is where the actual database and archive logs are stored. In theory If you lose both disks on the mirror you would still have enough information on the RAID 5 partition to save the database."
- - - -

Now, disk configuration's one of my weakest spots, but I have the following two questions about their instructions:

Is their point about Oracle not supporting redo logs on striped partitions true, or are they talking rubbish? All our UNIX servers with Oracle use RAID 0+1 (mirroring plus striping) on all their disks, but is it different for Windows servers? I must say I'd never heard of this restriction before, but I'm willing to be enlightened! Anybody?
They're recommending RAID 5 for a transaction-heavy application server, here. Surely that's wrong? I thought I understood that RAID 5 was great for file servers but lousy for servers running transactio-heavy business applications. What's the view of you guys on this?

Please give me your views, I know we have some very experienced people on this list!

Best regards,

Paul
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Author: Paul Vincent
INET: Paul.Vincent_at_uce.ac.uk

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