Exchange 12 IOPS – the move to 64-bit

The move of Exchange 12 from 32–bit to 64–bit is not just about memory, it’s also about IO. In this article Terry Myerson starts to indicate the benefits:

Specifically, when comparing E2K3 to E12 on the same hardware, with the same user profile – but with a 64-bit OS vs. the 32-bit OS, our current tests show a >70% reduction in IOPS/user. In a future blog entry, we’ll discuss these improvements in detail.

Well, it’s certainly needed and needed soon. I have been working with a number of customers recently who have had to drive down the number of users in their Exchange implementations because of issues with storage performance. During deployment it’s easier and cheaper to have less users per server and less complicated storage than it is to try and consolidate. This is not a good situation to be in.

Oh, and the article is also interesting for the information it contains on memory issues.