Win2k3 Domain Controller Specs

[BGM]

Hey all,

I am planning to sperate my Windows SBS 2003 up into a DC, mail server, and SQL server on 3 sperate machines which will all run Windows 2003 Std Ed.

The machine it is on at the moment is going to be the mail server at 2x 3Ghz P4 and 4Gb RAM.. but i would like to know what are the recommended specs for a Domain Controller on its own?

I am planning to put it on a DELL PowerEdge 1750, which has 2GB RAM and 2x 2.8Ghz HT machines, the HDD will also be in a raid5 config at ~ 70Gb

My gut feeling is that this is extreme overkill, but some clarification would be nice as this machine is now freed up due to the aquisition of some new 1850s and id like to sperate my DC from any production apps.

Cheers for your input

Regards

Chris

[BGM]

wow.. no one :/

[bobbba]

I'd say that this is easily enough for what I expect your requirements are. The spec needs to be balanced against the number of objects in the AD (users, groups, computers etc).

Ideally the Global Catalogue and some of the FMSO roles should be separated onto different servers but if you are coming from an SBS environment, I'd expect that you will be fine.

RAID 1 might be a better config than RAID 5 because disk space won't be an issue and performance won't be hit if there's a drive failure. It probably could also be used to give you freedom to take out a disk as a fallback if you are doing any major upgrades.

[BGM]

  bobbba said:

I'd say that this is easily enough for what I expect your requirements are. The spec needs to be balanced against the number of objects in the AD (users, groups, computers etc).

Ideally the Global Catalogue and some of the FMSO roles should be separated onto different servers but if you are coming from an SBS environment, I'd expect that you will be fine.

RAID 1 might be a better config than RAID 5 because disk space won't be an issue and performance won't be hit if there's a drive failure. It probably could also be used to give you freedom to take out a disk as a fallback if you are doing any major upgrades.

cheers very much

i was thinking the same about raid 1

ill go ahead now and sort it out :D