Basic Server Maintenance

[Wolf1.8]

Just wanted to know what people do to keep their windows servers clean and running well (general maintenance)...so post up!!!! 🙂 Thanks!!!

 

[ming]

Not many people run a server from home. 😛
I always switch my machine off when I don't need to use it.

 

[funky dredd]

On my file servers at work I run a defrag problem, and keep it up to date with updates. The only server I don't defrag is my Exchange server which has it's own built in defragger. There are issues with defragging an exchange server with third party defragmenting programs. One issue being you could lose all the data on the box!

 

[Wolf1.8]

On my file servers at work I run a defrag problem, and keep it up to date with updates. The only server I don't defrag is my Exchange server which has it's own built in defragger. There are issues with defragging an exchange server with third party defragmenting programs. One issue being you could lose all the data on the box!

The nice thing about all of this is that the 2k servers that we are running are just application servers....something new for us since we use Novell for almost everything!!! 🙂 Anyway, we have some applications that need 2K, and thus, I now maintain them. We don't run anything special like exchange or iis...just 2k Server with our 3rd party apps.

What kind of preventitive maitenence can be done on these???

 

[funky dredd]

Monitor your event logs! Updates, and defrag. Just for starters, after a little bit you'll realize just what exactly needs to be done in order to keep her running smoothly.

 

[ghayes]

"There are issues with defragging an exchange server with third party defragmenting programs. One issue being you could lose all the data on the box!"

This is a common mis-perception. There are no issues with defragmentation of Exchange systems - Microsoft's defrag APIs fully support this.

- Greg/Raxco Software
Microsoft MVP - Windows File Systems

Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility, as a systems engineer in the support department.

 

[funky dredd]

"There are issues with defragging an exchange server with third party defragmenting programs. One issue being you could lose all the data on the box!"

This is a common mis-perception. There are no issues with defragmentation of Exchange systems - Microsoft's defrag APIs fully support this.

- Greg/Raxco Software
Microsoft MVP - Windows File Systems

Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility, as a systems engineer in the support department.

"20
Make Exchange housekeeping easy
Tools that defragment disks are popular for good reason: A fragmented disk slows access and makes recovering data difficult. As a result, some IT departments load a defrag utility on every system that they build. However, although these tools are usually safe to use on workstations and file servers, keep them far away from your Exchange servers. General-purpose disk defrag utilities are not designed for Exchange and are likely to corrupt your databases beyond repair. Exchange defragments databases on its own. Beginning with Exchange Server 5.5, the Information Store performs an online defragmentation that removes deleted items, frees up space within the database, and optimizes access. In addition, Microsoft provides the means to compact your Information Store offline when necessary. Exchange 4.0 and 5.0 use EDBUTIL for this task; Exchange 5.5 and 2000 use ESEUTIL. Because these special-purpose tools safely keep Exchange databases from fragmenting, there is no need for additional third-party tools."


This is where I got my information from 😉
http://www.travishamilton.us/exchange_tips.asp

 

[ghayes]

The author provides nothing to back up this statement. There is NOTHING from Microsoft that says that defragmenting Exchange servers can cause data corruption or issues.

"Because these special-purpose tools safely keep Exchange databases from fragmenting, there is no need for additional third-party tools."

ESEUTIL is used to perform an offline compaction of Exchange datastores. Compacting datastores means that the internal fragmentation of the datastore is eliminated. However, the external datastore - as it exists on the drive - can still be fragmented. If there isn't a large enough piece of contiguous free space on the drive, the new compacted datastore will be created fragmented on the drive.

- Greg/Raxco Software
Microsoft MVP - Windows File Systems

Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a commercial defrag utility, as a systems engineer in the support department.