Compaq 108164-003 - ProLiant - 800 White Paper page 23

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Fault Tolerance is strongly recommended by Novell and Compaq engineers. RAID 1 is the
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preferred level of fault tolerance for systems that have mission-critical data, while RAID 5 is
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recommended for systems storing non-critical data. RAID 1 is the preference due to a
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combination of high level performance and protection of the data. RAID 1 uses disk mirroring,
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providing good data protection at the cost of low utilization of actual disk capacity. Disk
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mirroring uses 50% of available disk space for fault tolerance support. RAID 5 uses distributed
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data guarding, striping data and parity data across all drives in the array. The more drives in the
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. . array, the lower portion of each drive reserved for fault tolerance support. Set the Smart Array
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Controller read/write ratio to an appropriate level. In our test case, the optimal ratio is 75:25, due
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. . to the read-intensive environment. However, because this parameter is very application-specific,
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users should do their homework before changing it. Using the largest volume block size is
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recommended.
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R O O F O F O N C E P T O F
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Preliminary tests show that a ProLiant 800 can successfully sustain 500 users and a ProLiant
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5000 can sustain 1000 users. These tests prove that Compaq is a viable solution for GroupWise
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needs. More detailed information will be forthcoming after extensive testing at Novell's SuperLab
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facility in Provo, Utah. At the SuperLab, the full Compaq Server product line in multiple
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configurations will be tested under client loads in excess of 1000 users.
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