Symetrik Domino Consulting

In a recent disaster at our organization, we had to restore the program directory of a server. Since someone built the server with the default d:\lotus\domino and d:\lotus\domino\data, the outsource host facility restored the whole d:\lotus directory and it took us 4 hours waiting while the server was down.

This highlights some points that I always try to make about Domino disk installation:

If possible try to have different physical partitions for Domino.
C: drive Mirrored Array (2 physical disks) for Operating System and Domino program files
D: drive Raid 5 Array (3 or more physical disks) for Domino data files
E: drive (single disk) potentially for SWAP file, Domino temp directory, full text index temp directory.
F: drive Raid 5 Array (3 or more physical disks) potentially for transaction log, mail capturing, etc.

You’ll get better performance if the program files are on a disk that is not very fragmented.
You will also have an easier process for backing up your program directory prior to a Domino server upgrade (and if necessary – fall back procedure).
You will also have an easier and faster time restoring just the program directory if your Domino install becomes problematic and you need to do a restore.

Any comments?

2 Responses to “Why it is good to seperate the program and data directories”