Hello Andy,

I am a fan of your articles. However I found "Running Out of Space" a touch troubling. A disk or disk array runs best at 0 to 65% utilization. At 65% to 85% utilization we can expect a fall off in performance. At about 85% utilization we may expect a perceptible degradation in performance. So overall your article neglects the subject of disk performance. You may underestimate your influence if you think many D.B.A. don't pay attention to what you write. Further the suggestion to "keep several 1g files as placeholders on each drive that might run out of space." is questionable at best. Even placeholder files take up space and affect Disk performance. Given a choice between a CYA strategy that can affect performance or proactive maintenance I will choose the proactive approach rather than slow my customers and my system down.

Best wishes,

Barry O'Connell