When you estimate how much data will be stored on a new server, consider these issues:
How much data you will move to the new server from existing servers
How much data you will store on the server in the future
A general guideline is to assume that growth will be faster in the future than it was in the past. Investigate whether your organization plans to hire many employees, whether any groups in your organization are planning large projects that will require additional storage, and so on.
You must also consider how much space is used by operating system files, applications, redundancy, log files, and other factors. Table 9 describes some factors that affect server storage capacity.
Table 9. Factors that Affect Server Storage Capacity
Factor
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Required storage capacity
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Operating system files
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At least 15 GB.
To provide space for optional components, future service packs, and other items, plan for an additional 3 to 5 GB for the operating system volume. A Windows Server installation can require even more space for temporary files.
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Page file
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For smaller servers, 1.5 times the amount of RAM, by default.
For servers that have hundreds of gigabytes of memory, you might be able to eliminate the page file; otherwise, the page file might be limited because of space constraints (available disk capacity). The benefit of a page file of larger than 50 GB is unclear.
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Memory dump
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Depending on the memory dump file option that you have chosen, use an amount as large as the physical memory plus 1 MB.
On servers that have very large amounts of memory, full memory dumps become intractable because of the time that is required to create, transfer, and analyze the dump file.
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Applications
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Varies according to the application.
Example applications include backup and disk quota software, database applications, and optional components.
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Log files
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Varies according to the applications that create the log file.
Some applications let you configure a maximum log file size. You must make sure that you have enough free space to store the log files.
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Data layout and redundancy
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Varies depending on cost, performance, reliability, availability, and power goals.
For more information, see Choosing the Raid Level later in this guide.
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Shadow copies
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10 percent of the volume, by default, but we recommend increasing this size based on frequency of snapshots and rate of disk data updates.
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