June 23, 2006 at 7:20 am
Currently the machine I have my SQL installed on is set up like this:
P4 2.4 HT / 3 GB RAM / 3 x 250 SATA HD with a promise controller card in RAID 5 / 1 x 75 GB SATA 10k Raptor.
I run two databases on this.
1 Database holds ~100 GB worth of information (65GB of it is "backup" information that I probably could backup out of the active database, but I just haven't).
The other database holds ~14 GB worth of active information (none of which I can archive out).
Everything is backed up nightly to a Lan-HD, and then the "important" stuff is backed up further to a DLT drive.
On the RAID, there are also files that are shared between people at my office (4 users max).
What I'm wondering is, compared to people who have been using SQL for years and years how does this type of set up compare. Is maintaining the database in this manner just an absolutely horrible way of doing things, or is this about as good as someone might get unless they change to a JBOD of 8+ small SCSI drives?
The reason I ask is because putting the main database on the RAID really seems to have hurt performance rather than helped it (I used to store it simply on the OS drive and make continual backups to the RAID / LAN-HD and then to the tape to be super sure I never lost a backup).
June 23, 2006 at 9:42 am
"The reason I ask is because putting the main database on the RAID really seems...."
When you say 'main database', I assume that you mean the 14 GB DB with your active information. A single disk should out-perform a RAID 5 array. As far as 'best practices' go, you should leave your database on the RAID array. It would not recommend running your database on your OS disk due to the lack of redundancy. In addition to the fact that a RAID 5 array will not perform as well as a single disk, your main database not has to contend with your archive (or backup) database and your shared files.
I would recommend leaving your active database on the RAID array and removing the shared files. Every read and write that you and your co-workers do to your files is taking resources away from your databases, thus decreasing performance. While this may not give you a great performance boost, your question was about best practices and using your data storage array as a file server would be considered a worst practice. The disk subsystem is probably the most important resource for a database server so you want to minimize contention if at all possible.
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