I'm an spec'ing a new Dell server running ESXi 5 (free) to host SBS 2011, a terminal server, and at least one 'special function PC.' The SBS machine supports approximately 20 users, and in addition to Exchange, the server will host a Pervasive SQL app that like most Pervasive apps is file I/O intensive. The terminal server will host 5 - 8 users concurrently. The PC, well, I'm not concerned with it, overhead will be low. Typically in a physical machine the SBS would be 3 x 1 TB drives configured as RAID 5 (minimum), and the terminal server I'd have a pair of mirrored disks. With all of this is running on single machine, protected by a near CDP-based backup & recovery system, would I considered something like a mirror set for the SBS and another one for the terminal server? Should I still plan on a RAID 5 array for SBS and a mirrored set for the terminal server? Or, should I just create one RAID 5 for them both? If I do more than one RAID array, should they be on separate physical channels on the controller (Dell's new H700 RAID Controller)? Thanks for the feedback.
