Computing Staff
  • 1

RAID Configuration For A Domain Controller

  • 1

I am getting ready to setup a domain controller for a small business, less than 75 people. I am just curious to know the best RAID configuration for a small business? We have a spare server that we could use as a separate file server, but I was also wondering if it would be ok to run one server, since the business is so small?

Share

1 Answer

  1. There are no such things as primary and secondary DCs in in AD domain. They are all just DCs and are (with very limited exceptions) all equal. I would set both servers as DNS servers and DHCP servers (obviously with non-overlapping ranges) so that everything would just keep working in the event of one server failing. I’d use both of them as file servers, thus halving the impact of any failure.
    You wouldn’t want to duplicate things like shares, unless your requirements are modest or you have lots of money to throw around, as users can tolerate a few hours without access to some documents far better than a few hours with no access to the network.
    Apart from redundancy dual DCs spreads the load. Logging on can be quite resource intensive, especially when everyone is logging on at the same time first thing in the morning.

    • 0