I need to build a Linux file server this system will be used to push Bluray content to all of our Windows 7 media centers and devices. Also the system will be used to serve up ISCSI luns to Vmware ESXI and I will be also using some NFS features. Also I run an Active Directory domain so Samba will need to be integrated into our domain. I plain on using LVM and software raid features. So now that I have stated my purpose I would like to ask you guys general advice on building a Linux server for example how should the system be partitioned when building a server?

Could you tell more about the requirements of this server? How many clients at one time? How much storage? Is this for home or business? How important are reliability, availability, and uptime? Any other details related to performance?