"Best Configuration" for Drives

  • I just had a technical screening for a SQL Server DBA and wanted to get some input on one of the questions. In the real world, there are always a lot of factors to consider, and I fully understand that.

    I was asked...what is the best configuration for a 'low' transaction database? Any opinions?

  • That kind of question is very subjective - you'd have to define the term 'best' before you could even begin to answer the question.

    Even for a low transaction system, what kind of storage is available. Is it local or SAN? How large are the databases? How large are they going to get? Is tempdb used a lot?

    For most of my smaller systems, I usually start with two drives for the system. A system DB drive sized at about 5GB and a data files drive sized to what is the expected size of the system. When I install SQL Server, I select the Advanced button and change the data file location to the system drive. After the install, I modify the default data/log locations to the data files drive so new databases are created there.

    What RAID levels are used will be dependent upon what storage is available (local/SAN), the type of SAN, etc...

    Jeffrey Williams
    “We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

    ― Charles R. Swindoll

    How to post questions to get better answers faster
    Managing Transaction Logs

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